Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 420
January 15, 2014
The Carcass of West Chester: Silverman and Company Inc., try again
In a lot of ways fighting a developer who has invested many thousands if not millions of dollars into a parcel of property which was initially turned down by residents complaining about the change of use in zoning considerations is no different from fighting a school levy. Both involve government and utilize the standard process of beating residents into the ground until they submit to social pressure. This has never been truer than the re-emergence of the Kroger Marketplace proposal in West Chester, Ohio. According to the Pulse Journal, Blue Ash-based Silverman and Company Inc. recently resubmitted a request to change 35 acres zoned for residential use to Commercial Planned Unit Development to include a 133,000-square-foot grocery store at the intersection of Tylersville and Princeton Glendale. This was the same parcel of land in contention during 2013. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.
The first phase of the Crossings of Beckett shopping center would include a Kroger grocery store, a bank, a pharmacy with drive-through access–a Fred Meyer Jewelers, a small medical clinic, a Kroger fuel center, an additional 15,000 square feet of retail space alongside Kroger and three additional out-parcels along Ohio 747. Basically, it’s just another strip mall with gas stations that are already just one mile further to the south. And there is nothing in the Silverman proposal which helps fill the massive vacancies of the old Biggs retail center just two miles to the south—which to this very day is mostly empty. The old Biggs center is comparable in size to a Kroger Marketplace, yet Silverman and Company Inc., do not own that property—so they aren’t interested. They’d rather build on their property of course, at a location of their choosing and if the residents pose resistance—they’ll strategically wear them down the same way school levies from public schools have.
To try to take the edge off the community battle which took place the last time this endeavor was proposed and Tom Egger led the community to resist and suppress those plans the developer made changes to the plan to eliminate the three parcels on the north side of the site. The new plan also calls for the creation of a buffer zone for residents to the north, according to Tim Burgoyne, Silverman and Company Inc.’s director of site acquisition and development. This tactic is common for developers so that they can give the illusion that they have compromised. It is the same stupid thing the local public school of Lakota did when they put their last levy on the ballot. They spent hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars to essentially convince the community that they “listened.” But in reality they just imposed their government backed will upon the voters wearing down resistance. The developer in this case is performing the same task—but showing the community that they are “compromising.” They hope to take the edge off Tom Egger’s case and earn the zoning commission’s support of their endeavor with a kind of rigged election process. Likely the deal was cut with zoning officials before Silverman and Company Inc made their recent announcement. These guys always dip their feet into the pool before they jump in.
As stated to the media by Burgoyne, “The residents wanted nothing along there, so after meeting with the community and staff members and getting everyone’s input, we believe that we have substantially addressed their concerns and we’re excited to move forward.” What Burgoyne means is that they moved around the architectural drawings from the original proposal, which deliberately asked for too much knowing they would get resistance from the public—then backed off to their original design so to show that they compromised. Of course that is speculation, but I’ve been down this road many more times than once—and if that’s not exactly how the situation played out, then I have swamp land on Mars to sell you.
http://www.todayspulse.com/news/news/developer-submits-new-plan-for-kroger-along-ohio-7/ncjpD/
This is supposed to be why we have government, and zoning should look at their vacant properties at the old Biggs Center and evaluate that if they allow this Kroger Marketplace into the empty field of the proposed location, they can forget about ever filling the much more lucrative location at the corner of Union Center and 747 where there are already stop lights, double lanes of traffic and an artery directly into Fairfield, Beckett Ridge, Tri County and I-75. At the Silverman property all those things will have to be built, which makes developers happy, but will erode away the lives of Tom Egger and hundreds of families in the area.
This of course puts the Trustees of West Chester into a difficult position as they will have to vote upon the zoning recommendations—which will likely fall in their lap this time around. If they vote against the proposed site they vote against a developer who wants to bring something truly good to West Chester. The trouble is—it’s in the wrong location. If they vote for the developer then they doom the lives of many tax payers looking for protection from government—and they will doom the Biggs location. Prospective businesses for that location will choose the new corner of 747 and Tylersville because it will be the latest and greatest development in the West Chester area. But 15 years from now, it will be old like the current Biggs location is today, and homeowners like Tom Egger and his family will still be looking at an older building bringing tons of traffic and unseemly elements to his back yard once the media has moved on to the next new thing.
I’m all for developers making a few bucks off their investments. But the West Chester zoning board said no once before, and here come Silverman and Company Inc., with some market up drawings to give the illusion that they give a damn about what’s best for the West Chester community. Surely they are counting on the local residents to scratch their heads and declare, “hey–they listened.” But they didn’t, they just think the people of the community are suckers who will buy into a scam that is as old as time—and they expect to use government to protect their investments. When Silverman and Company Inc purchased the plot of land in question, their investment was a risk. There was no guarantee that they would convince West Chester zoning into allowing their proposal to come to fruition. But with the many games that go on behind the scenes, they use government to protect their investments, even if it goes against the will of the people. That is what this second proposal is—it’s very disrespectful, and ultimately damaging to the West Chester community. But Silverman and Company Inc., won’t care. They’ll make their money, and move on to the next location like vultures picking clean the carcass of road kill. And within two decades the corner of 747 and Tylersville will look like modern-day Route 4, and replacing the homes of people like Tom Egger will be section 8 designations as government picks up those properties because nobody wants to move into an area that looks down into a Kroger parking lot. The only people who will want to move to a place like that are future economic despots and people looking for government checks and a nice corner of that parking lot to sell drugs to other treacherous characters and scumbags. Only the carcass won’t be road kill that time—it will be West Chester.
Rich Hoffman
January 14, 2014
Ditzy Braless Bitches and Enamored Weak-kneed Men: How public relation firms destroy society with ‘Social Proof’
In the original draft of my novel Tail of the Dragon I was extremely critical of public relations firms—especially those owned by foreign interests in the New York market. This of course did not sit well with the public relations branch of my publisher. During rewrites it was insisted upon that much of my harshest criticism be removed. As the publisher, they had a contractual right to do that even though I wasn’t crazy about it. Much of the public relations subplots of the novel did not make it into the final draft which didn’t hurt the story, but did not allow me to expose to the extent that I creatively wished to illuminating public relation firms as the propaganda arm of misinformation by exposing a vulnerable aspect of human nature—their ancient and very tribal need to travel in herds. I was tapping into my reader’s intellectual desire to rebel away from such a manner in my novel, but with that publisher, it wasn’t going to fly. Public relations professionals such as those who work to improve the image of government schools or run cover stories for corrupt politicians use a term called “social proof,” which Bill Whittle from PJTV covered during a recent segment. Social Proof, used to be called ‘Peer-pressure,’ but has since taken on a new, less harsh name. It is essentially a type of mob mentality that convinces people to go along with the herd. President Obama is really President Social Proof–he convinced a slew of voters that to question him was racist through public relations mechanisms utilizing social proof. Now, several voices are crying out that the Emperor…President…is wearing no clothes, and all that’s left to do is run the hollow people into the river. Watch Whittle’s explanation of that metaphor below.
Social proof is how the scam artists of public relations work their magic. They convince the masses that a truth is not a truth because a majority opinion does not believe such a thing. Once the masses invest into a belief public relations specialists can then direct social temperament to the molding of that belief—which is happening at virtually every level of endeavor in modern America. Public relations are so corrosive that it could easily be assumed that almost nothing we hear today we can believe—because most of it has been formed to expose social proof as the mechanism of mental acceptance.
Years ago I worked with a girl on a project whose father ran a large downtown Cincinnati public relations firm. This project involved WLW radio, major local politicians, and a wide range of very dynamic individuals. I attended several meetings at this downtown location and as things became friendlier, she came to my house. The more I came to know this young woman, the more I despised her. I held my opinions in check for the good of the project we were all working on, but quickly, my desire to work with such a corrupt—formless personality became too great. On an evening when I was set to go do a show on WLW during Willie’s time slot, I refused as the personalities involved had attempted to steer this project into the realm of social proof where a formless void of chaos was acting upon the development. I quickly learned during this experience why large companies become faceless, spineless organizations as public relation firms and lawyers take their products down a similar path and once there they often have too much time and money invested to back out—so they withdrawal from the creative process leaving everything to the parasites of public relations—which is about as unproductive as an endeavor as there is. They do nothing for a product except expose in consumers their need to satisfy a social proof which drives them to participate in the products represented by public relation firms.
My experience with this firm disgusted me, and it took me several years to get the bad taste out of my mouth, but I did learn a tremendous amount from them—which ended up in my book. But as my publisher stated, damning public relations firms would surely damn the sales of the book because without public relations—how could I hope to sell a book in this modern climate. My statements were the same as what they were all those years ago with the Cincinnati firm and WLW radio—I’d let honesty and the desire for a product that touched on the human desire for anti social proof carry the day. It doesn’t always work so well, but I feel better about the things I do when social proof is not a factor—but the curiosity of the masses are instead driven by individual desire. Those generated by public relation firms promoting social proof are essentially advocating falsification of reality.
One of the reasons I love Star Wars so much is that the love of that product is driven by individual freedom and recognition. Social proof actually worked against Star Wars in the 70s, the studios were rebelling against the film and if not for Alan Ladd Jr., 20th Century Fox would have pulled out of the deal. The industry did not want the product of Star Wars, but the internal desire of the human race did—which proves to me that such things are possible—and it gives me hope. Every time we go to the movies and see a preview for a new film—most of which will not live up to the hype, we are seeing attempts by public relations specialists to expose to the mass public a demand created by social proof to obtain strong opening weekend sales. Most films because they are completely social proof in their content fizzle out within two weeks of their box office take as the public turns away disappointed to their next hope for a successful movie going experience. In 2013 to 2014 the films which defy social proof are the Disney film Frozen, and Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The product of those films exceeds the social proof of popular opinion and my excitement over those enterprises is because they overcome the falsification of social proof. Those two films are the two best-selling films which still have strong box office support several weeks after their opening weekend release which means that the content of those films defies social proof. People do not go see them because of peer pressure; they see them because the stories communicate to their individual natures. There is a BIG difference.
The Disney Company utilizes social proof in massive droves to attract people to their television, movie and amusement parks. But once there, Disney actually provides a good product and people come away generally happy and fulfilled on an individual level. Barack Obama uses social proof to hide his many crimes and scandals. This leaves society always feeling anxious and compelled to fill the void with conspiracy theories. But the behavior does not change because social proof creates a paralysis among the human species which states that action cannot be taken against injustice if the masses do not recognize the peril. This is why liberals, progressives, out-right communists and socialists have attempted to remove value from society using public relation firms to help them commit the deed, so that society would not have the intellectual tools to make such a determination. So long as society is paralyzed with shackles of lost value, they cannot act out against political crimes because social proof prevents them from acting.
Social proof advocated by public relations firms are one of the worst aspects of modern society. In my local school district of Lakota they are used to hide sex scandals from teachers against students, and advocate dangerously high tax rates among the property owners. In the current White House, Obama uses social proof to hide the content of his past and the crimes of his present—such as Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and the IRS scandal. Social proof does not hide the crime, but it does take away the means of holding conviction against it. Individually, most people will declare under their breath that something is wrong, but due to their ancient tendencies toward collectivism, will not stand by such convictions in the light of day as social proof prevents them from openly advocating such a thing. It is in this way that much evil is committed in broad daylight and suffering on an epic level is perpetuated. And all such things begin with public relation firms and ditzy braless bitches lacking a soul propped up by cowardly men who would rather sip wine from their high-heeled shoes than stand on the ground of conviction for what’s right and what’s wrong. They’d rather spin the facts with social proof and hide the crimes of existence behind that terrible form of peer pressure.
Rich Hoffman
January 13, 2014
Target Leaving Middletown: How high taxes, school levies and socialism destroy communities
When Middletown schools defeated their 2013 school levy by the narrow margin of 238 votes the media made some theater of the issue and behaved as though something troubling was amiss. Then those same voices cried out in shock as it was announced that Target—the popular chain of retail stores was closing two area stores—one directly in Middletown and another nearby. Upon that news I could only shake my head. Most people do not see the connection of high costs through taxation, unemployment, and how such things repeal a thriving retail community. Those same voices are currently arguing for higher minimum wages and even more taxes for wasteful public schools teaching children liberal educations instead of conservative ones. Then they are stunned when a large department store like Target wants to move out of their community when thriving Target stores in nearby Bridgewater Falls, and Voice of America are swelling with business. To them it doesn’t seem fair—they feel that Target retail stores should stay open regardless of how much money they are making as they are performing a social service. And they believe these things because they have been taught through public school and other liberal dominated places, that socialism works and is good—when in fact it is bad and destroys communities like Middletown.
I have watched Middletown decline all of my life. Unlike Michael Moore who had a personal crisis when he saw the same type of decline happen to his town of Flint, Michigan, I know very well what has caused and is causing the declines in economic activity around Middletown. It’s not the rich, greedy, white man as the socialist Moore proposed—it is human nature which turns and runs from too much interconnected responsibility with human beings who do not share their values. Real estate investors, the kind of people who would buy homes of value in Middletown, and the kind of people who decide or not to bring Target stores to the Middletown area do so based on the prospect of value and profit their product can render. As I watched interviews from the residents around Middletown speaking of the vacant strip malls which used to be filled with economically vibrant diversity—they are perplexed as to why they are no longer there—as if their existence had come to be so to provide a service to those people. They never grasped that those businesses existed in those places so that they could offer a product or service so that they could make money, and when they cannot make that money—they leave.
Not a single member of government can bring a Target store to the Middletown area. No government can create the jobs of a Target store. They can lure Target to the Middletown area with the promise of lower taxes, but they cannot get management to do all the work of operating a retail store there. If taxes go up after a Target store has come to an area, then Target has to sell more retail goods to offset their profit losses expunged from the taxes. And if the kinds of people who come to those highly taxed stores are typical welfare recipients who are diseased by their own unhealthy lifestyles, Target is not going to make much money. Target’s costs will be high because those types of people tend to have high crime rates among their populations, and high crime means sales margins are eroded. Store maintenance in such places tends to be high as well. Target as a management group can put the same effort into the VOA area and have much higher profit margins because the crime is not nearly so bad, the people are respectful of each other, and the employee base there is more robust and dependable. In Middletown where many Target workers are weighing working everyday at the retail giant or staying home and collecting welfare, it is difficult to maintain a staff which can successfully provide the kind of service that attracts good customers as opposed to bad ones. Nobody wants to go to a store to buy a pair of pants and hear a rant from some “baby momma” who is bitter about their life and is as snappy as a piranha in the Amazon.
Good people do not like to associate with bad people. Moms with 10 year marriages, two children they are caring for, and a purse full of money they worked their ass off to get do not want to be greeted at the door of a Target by gang bangers, drug dealers, and the type of people who would rather buy a bottle of Jack Daniels over a bar of soap. Those moms tend to spend their money in places where they can share their experience with people who have common values with them. They don’t want to deal with such people who provide cat calls wanting sex by a malignant group of misdirected youth gathering in the parking lot of a Target to distribute drugs into the Middletown area. They would rather go to the Voice of America target where the people are nice, affluent, and respectful.
The same decline in economic activity can be seen elsewhere around the Cincinnati area. Detroit is not the only place where socialism and bad political management of taxed resources have destroyed communities. And ultimately the fault rests squarely on the government schools which for three decades advocated socialism over capitalism leaving people completely defenseless intellectually to deal with the concept that Target stores will move away from their communities if they do not maintain a quality about their lives which is conducive to positive economic growth. It doesn’t take long when socialism enters a community to destroy it. Politicians who give away the efforts of the productive disincentivize that continued activity which pushes away the productive leaving only the parasitic to reside in their communities. When effort is taxed and those looted resources are then given to the unproductive, what else would or should happen? The politician who suggests socialism is essentially stating that those who can pull a wagon full of those unwilling to walk should do so out of the kindness of their hearts—but the reality is that nobody of any worth, or intelligence would do so. They’d put down the wagon handle and walk off leaving all those riding in the wagon to transport themselves.
The Middletown school levy failed because the tipping point had been reached. There are still plenty of apartment dwellers, welfare recipients, and parasitic drug addicts who will vote in favor of the Middletown school levy because they really have nothing to lose. Someone else is likely to pay for the taxes they voted in favor of. But, in doing so the good property owner sells his apartment buildings to a “slum lord” and the profitable enterprise like Target simply pulls away from the area taking with them responsible employees who would pay taxes into a community. It doesn’t take long to run out of other people’s money—and this is what has happened in Middletown, and why Target is leaving.
These are the dangers of socialism and if you believe that taxes can forever be raised on those able to pay—you have been taught incorrectly—and you should blame the foolish public school which put such ideas into your head. Those socialist beliefs are what have killed Middletown over many years to such an extent that it cannot even support a Target store. That realization is a crushing blow to a community that has forever seen its better days. Once an area gets a stigma of having too much crime, too much low intellectual aptitude, and an unproductive workforce—it’s over. Such reputations cannot be easily won again and only time will heal such things. Only Middletown doesn’t have time—and neither does its people.
Rich Hoffman
January 12, 2014
Sam Wyche and Hardy Nickerson Inventors of ‘A Bucs Life’: Tampa Bay Bucs hire Lovie Smith as head coach
Long before there was an internet I remember specifically picking up a copy of The Tampa Tribune at a Cincinnati area Borders Books and Music and eating a fabulous breakfast at Perkins while reading about the very dynamic changes that my favorite football coach Sam Wyche was bringing to the fledgling Tampa Bay Buccaneers. One of those changes was in uniform, one of the others was the free agent acquisition of Hardy Nickerson from the Pittsburg Steelers. Between Nickerson and Wyche the two paved the way for what became the Tony Dungy Era Buccaneers. For me Wyche as an NFL coach was way in front of the train, he was the first coach to teach Joe Montana, he invented the no huddle offense, pissed off most of the NFL and beat writers all over the country and was a pure bred innovator. He was bringing to Tampa—a team swimming in corruption from its owner Hugh Culverhouse’s three extramarital affairs–passion, drive, and conviction. Hugh gave Wyche free control to make the Bucs into something great, and that is just what Sam went to do. Nickerson was the first block that would become a wall built for the next four years in a defense that produced Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch and many other notables. Nickerson hung around till 1999 teaching those young Buc defenders how to become Hall of Fame material. In 2013 Sapp was inducted, in 2014 Tony Dungy, Brooks and Lynch are all finalists. When Hugh died, Wyche was on the out as the Glazer family wanted to bring their own kind of guy in as coach, Tony Dungy which was an excellent choice. But Tony only honed off the edges of a team that Wyche built. Of that group was the upcoming line backer coach Lovie Smith. Now, twenty years later replacing the hard copy newspaper with the internet and an iPad, I am once again reading exciting news about the Buccaneers. Lovie Smith has been hired to be the new head coach after a few years with Greg Schiano did not produce winning seasons. And Lovie hired Hardy Nickerson to be his linebacker coach. An explosion of fun is headed for Tampa. For me it all started with the kind of intensity, and innovation seen in the clip below—with Hardy Nickerson and Sam Wyche—the coach who started it all in Tampa.
During this last season when my enemies wanted to give me a rough way to go they ribbed me incessantly about the Bucs terrible record. Under Schiano they started off the 2013 season 0 and 8 and knowing a bit about the Glazers, I knew the writing was on the wall. They fired Sam Wyche after four losing seasons even though he had some dramatic wins and brought to the team a dynamic that it had not had before. The Glazers fired the great Tony Dungy after getting repeatedly to the playoffs but not going to a Superbowl and hired Jon Gruden. Then Gruden was fired to give Raheem Morris a chance, a long time coach for the Bucs as the ownership was looking for a new Lovie Smith or Mike Tomlin—both guys had come into the NFL through Tampa Bay. When Raheem didn’t work out the Bucs went outside the box in hiring Schiano from Rutgers. When Schiano started 2013 flat, I knew he was gone and I told my enemies that. I still listened to the games and paid attention to the team for pure entertainment, but I knew the Glazers would pull the trigger at the end of the season—and they did. They fired Schiano on “Black Monday” a day where 5 NFL coaches lost their jobs, and by Wednesday even over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day hired Lovie Smith by Wednesday. When Lovie did not take an NFL job during 2013 after being let go from the Chicago Bears in 2012 for not going to the playoffs that year with a 10 – 5 season I assumed the Glazers were talking to Smith to resurrect some of the old magic from the Dungy era—a period of time paved by Sam Wyche and Hardy Nickerson. So when I saw that Nickerson was coming back to Tampa not as a player—but a coach—I was ecstatic. Hardy Nickerson is my kind of player. He’s a class act, he’s tough, he’s fearless—and now he’s teaching the next generation of Buccaneers how to hit, strip away the ball, and in general wreak havoc against opposing offenses.
Football is a trivial game. The game itself isn’t any more important in the scheme of life than a typical poker game or a gambling excursion. Wins and losses come and go and football games are only games. But for me, people like Wyche, Dungy, and Lovie Smith, are innovators who brought their teams from the back of Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality train to the front. (See Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance CLICK HERE) Football however is the closest thing America has on a high-profile front that represents pure capitalism and the reasons why The United States was able to excel in the past economically while other countries struggled. Football is an American game built around American philosophy and when Sam Wyche in the clip above pointed to his players warning them not to shake hands with the other players before the game—he meant it. On the field of battle the other team is the enemy. The goal is competition, not hugging, kissing, or brown-nosing. The goal in football is to dominate the other team, and Hardy Nickerson bought into that philosophy—which carried over to players who mentored from him and became Hall of Fame players.
In normal everyday life I yell a lot. I tend to play at life much the way Hardy Nickerson played the game of football in Tampa Bay and Sam Wyche coached. In one day this past week I punched a desktop breaking the linoleum top, I threw a chair, sheered the lock of a door by head butting it and yelled at about 30 different people. I didn’t do these things to be intimidating or to put on a show. I did it because the passion in my heart had no place else to go and came out in explosive outbursts. Sam Wyche always had that kind of passion as a coach which is how I became a Buccaneer fan in the first place. For him it wasn’t fake or a show—it was real, and the players who played for him knew it. Whether the situation is a football game or everyday life, passion is something that the world needs more of. There is time for handshaking after the games we all play are done—but in the meantime you have to lay it all out on the field of play and give it everything—and I mean EVERYTHING.
I am very proud of the Glazer family in Tampa—a place I consider my second home. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers just had a 4 -12 season, but I have never been prouder to call myself a fan. I’m a fan because the Bucs fired a coach two years into a contract so they could abandon the guy and move on to a formula that wins. That formula might not work, and if it doesn’t, they’ll try again and again and again until it does. Meanwhile, they are always looking to bring in the type of coaches that made them successful to begin with, and hiring Hardy Nickerson as a member of the coaching staff is a tremendous indicator of just how serious they are about trying to win. The other NFL team in the town of my primary home is The Cincinnati Bengals who just allowed Marvin Lewis to lose his fifth playoff appearance game. The owners of the Bengals will bring Marvin back next year, and the year after, and the year after, and the year after so long as the guy wants to coach because they have no idea what they are doing. They simply hope that their time will come every now and again and wait their turn for a shot at the title. Unlike the Bucs, they wait for their time to come, while the Glazers try to make their time to come with forward-looking leadership. Hardy Nickerson and Sam Wyche are the embodiments of that philosophy and are the primary reasons that after all these years from that first peek at the Buccaneer team of 1993 that I am still a fan—and so long as the Glazers own the team—am likely to continue even if they never win again.
BECAUSE THEY TRY AND HAVE PASSION!
There is a lot of talk centering on my little grandson because as a young little guy just over a year old he is already grunting and making animal noises showing a tremendous amount of aggression. His father was a cage fighter, his mom is my kid, and he’s my grandson—what would anybody expect? When he sees me he greets me with a growl and a fist pump. His grunting and growling has been so obvious that people are taking notice and are concerned. But as a little boy who will grow up to be a man, I know damn well what I’m doing, and my relationship with him will be as such. The enemy is on the field and you don’t shake hands with them, you don’t whisper sweet nothings to them, you don’t make friends. You crush them, you pummel them, and you make them beg to come off the field with their very lives forgetting about victory. And those foundations start in the mind. Once the game is over, shake hands, go to church, and break bread. But in the meantime conquer, destroy, and win!
That is the way of the world, and makes everything in life—even for the losers—better. It is in Tampa what they call……………….”A Bucs Life.”
Rich Hoffman
January 11, 2014
Mark Haverkos Speech For GOP Executive Chairman: Don Quixote without the windmills
To be clear on exactly what is wrong with the Republican Party two people whom I know pretty well ran against each other for the Butler County executive chairman of the GOP. Todd Hall, who is the grandson of Carlos Todd ran against Mark Haverkos for the powerful seat just given up by David Kern who was frustrated by all the party infighting. Kern gave up the seat one day before Bridgewater Falls Shopping Center sued the GOP party for $40,000 for breaking the lease of its former headquarters. Knowing something about the situation up close and all the personalities involved, much of the infighting came because Todd, who used to run the GOP for over a decade during the 90s wanted to retake control of the machine politics so that it was friendlier to business. Through his influence the money dried up. Dave Kern was a Tea Party type whom the GOP used to secure seats during the 2010 elections but by 2012, the GOP wanted nothing to do with the Tea Party after the Senate Bill 5 mishandling by John Kasich. So to get all the ducks in a row to support politicians like Kasich, Boehner, and Portman the last I have known from the start of his career and watched decline with corrosive influence, the GOP wanted to push out the Tea Party types like Kern. Under Kern’s watch the fundraising dried up because he wanted to bring honesty and good politics to the GOP. But for the traditional GOP, this wasn’t in the cards.
Mark has been as close to a pure hearted political type most of the time that I’ve known him. He has tried and tried and tried for years to bring to political office the kind of person that every American wishes for, a normal smart guy who wants to give something back to his community. He enjoys following political happenings and over many years has maintained the ability to maintain his mind. He is still trying to do the right things in politics, something I remember well from Rob Portman when he was running for his first congressional seat during a special election in 1993 and catering favor from the Ross Perot fan base. Mark is still that kind of political office seeker. But sadly, he has found himself to live a parallel life to that of Don Quixote and the fight against windmills which he believed to be monsters. Only in the case of Mark, the villains are monsters, and are not imaginary windmills posing as monsters—they are quite literal, but the results are the same—futility. Not to say that Todd Hall is a monster—actually he’s far from it, but the institution he serves is. The people who are the targets of his fundraising efforts for the GOP, several whom I also know and abandoned me when I needed them because they were afraid of a bunch of girls are also generally good people—but the institutions they serve constitute the collectivism of machine politics making them faceless contributors to a vile enterprise known as politics. Mark offered himself as a solution but was rejected in favor of Hall for obvious reasons. Under Mark the GOP likely wouldn’t wrestle much money out of the business community for politicians like Boehner, Kasich and many others seeking money for their war chests. So during the election he lost to Todd Hall 177 to 266—which represents clearly the split of the Republican Party. The purists are in the slight minority, the business oriented GOP machine cogs who desire to use political power to protect their business interests from government are the other. For the rest of this coverage let me provide you with something that the local media does not have access to, or would dare print—the actual speech by Mark given during the election. I’d rather let Mark speak from his own words of the situation and illuminate the plight of a man committed to honesty in the field of political endeavor which is to my eyes equivalent to the plight of Don Quixote. It may seem futile, but I admire his effort.
Mark Haverkos speech for the Butler County executive chairman of the GOP, 2014
I am Mark Haverkos, I’ll turn 60 this year, and I have owned and operated my own business for 30 yrs. I’ve served the GOP mostly by supporting candidates directly by planting signs at 3am and hanging flyers on mailboxes. In last Novembers’ election I spent 13 hrs working the polls to get two West Chester trustees elected and we succeeded by knocking off a 20yr sitting Democrat.
Last year I applied for the County Administrator job and during my interview I was told by Commissioner Dixon he was afraid I had a reputation of “speaking my mind” or “telling it like it is” and that “wasn’t necessarily a good thing”.
I didn’t get the job”. You see, I would rather have someone tell it like it is, than lie to my face”
When I first moved here from Cincinnati I sought a seat on the Butler County GOP and won my central committee seat ever since.
I quickly learned the party had some problems but I had faith things would change. Lord knows every week brings a newspaper headline of something stupid the GOP has done.
The real trouble started years ago when the party held their meetings in what was referred to as the Todd-Ma-Hall, a big fancy building the GOP should never have bought and could not afford.
So while our GOP had little money the Todd-Ma-Hall building was sold and commissions were paid. Those responsible for that mess signed the lease at Bridgewater and more commissions were paid, all while the GOP was broke and rumors swirled that around $20,000 had been misplaced.
The dynasty in charge running the show convinced everyone to just move on, no need to look any further and life would be good.
Some would say it’s all Dave Kern’s fault for not paying the current bills and not holding enough fundraisers. Dave didn’t sign that lease, the dynasty did. I’ve heard several members were working on a settlement deal with Bridgewater, when another member placed a call that ended those talks. Supposedly if the right people were put in place at the GOP the “dynasty” would settle with Bridgewater and make themselves look like heroes.
The Bridgewater lease isn’t the only outstanding bill the GOP owes. Deals were made with the Ohio House Caucus to pay the bills to win the legal challenge that helped get Wes Rutherford elected. The House Caucus to date has failed to pay their part. Our State reps need to pressure Columbus to honor their promise.
If many of us agree the Butler County GOP is broken, how would I fix it ?
First I will ask local office holders for a small percentage of their fundraising efforts go back into our general fund. How can our candidates expect members to pay $50-$100 for every fundraiser they are invited to and then give nothing back in return to the party?
Second, as for our State legislators, I’m asking you to divert a larger percentage of your fundraising back to our local party, rather than sending it to Columbus where it is wasted. Otherwise, what incentive or resources does the Butler County GOP have in supporting you in the next election?
And last I will call on those responsible for the Bridgewater mess and demand they negotiate and pay the settlement themselves before this week ends.
If you’re ready to ignore the past and proceed blissfully into the future without accounting for how we got here, I urge you to vote for my opponent.
However, if your principles matter, and you want those principles reflected in our GOP, then I ask you to vote for Mark Haverkos. Do the resources you donate to the party, your time, talent and money matter to you? If your reputation and the reputation of our GOP matters to you, then I am Mark Haverkos and I respectfully ask for your vote.
On the education front, can you see what I’m cooking? This Yale professor made an entire course out of a children’s story. See what I’m talking about with education?
Rich Hoffman
January 10, 2014
Leia Display Systems: The future of science fact inspired by fiction
The reason I provide so many comparison articles about the influence of Star Wars on our modern society is because it is unique in the history of the world. As much as many would assume that it was just a series of movies made years ago and will fade away in popularity in the years to come are grossly mistaken. Star Wars in the future will have more influence on philosophy, science, art, history, politics, religion and virtually every aspect of culture than ANY other influence from the 20th Century. If books like the Communist Manifesto had the ability to change the world with massive collectivism and wealth redistribution sentiments, Star Wars will dwarf that small little book in its ability to reach the hearts and minds of virtually every corner of the globe. This was never truer than the present age where a new company in Poland has invented a holographic projection system that will revolutionize all forms of communication in the next decade. It is the new hot thing and will soon make iPads and iPhones look clunky and archaic. It is very difficult to understand how many astronauts, how many NASA scientists, how many bio tech engineers, physicist, and computer programmers journeyed to those fields because of Star Wars. But it is quickly becoming apparent in vehicle design, political trends, and social patterns where their influence has come from. As of this writing the first Star Wars film came out 37 years ago, and now that the kids from that age are in their 40s–the impact of their imaginations stirred in those stories has become obvious. This has never been truer than the new company called Leia Display Systems created because the Polish entrepreneurs wanted to recreate the holographic message Princess Leia gave to Obi Wan Kenobi in the first film A New Hope. With that basic premise in mind they worked out the problems of implementation while at European night clubs and the rest is………….the future.
The new way of advertising
Small screen – infinite possibilities
Screen dimensions are 65cm x 65cm. Very thin projection surface (about 6mm) makes possible to project hi definition pictures. Now the only border is YOUR imagination!
Perfect for promotion, premieres, introductions and any applications when you want to draw attention and astonish your guests.
The whole new experience
Clear image on giant screen
3m x 2,5m screen is a perfect solution for event marketing, stage, fashion shows, trade shows etc. You can put your hand through it or walk through it and the screen goes back to its previous form immediately. Interactive kit allows translating it into a giant multi-touch screen or other solution based on people movement.
Leia Display System
Technology for tomorrow
LDS are the devices that allows to display images in mid-air. This unique technology makes possible to walk through the image, touch it or interact with it. Streams of bearly visible fog becomes an image carier and their laminar structure allows to display hi resolution contents. Our patented way to produce laminar airflow for very long distance from the output makes Leia Display the most steady midair screen on the market.
When the 1989 film Back to the Future II came out showing Hill Valley in the far away year of 2015, there were holographic images everywhere advertising products and communicating ideas. Well, it’s now 2014, and with the Leia Display System our society is nearly on target for these kind of video interaction services. The units seen above should be available to the mass population in approximately five years from now, but without question they will begin to show up at trade shows within the next few years. This upcoming technology is so powerful that it will change how everything is done by way of communication. Suddenly public venues such as sports stadiums, night clubs, shopping complexes, even movie theaters will utilize these powerful devices to bring graphic images from the two-dimensional world to the 3D world.
Just ten years ago such cutting edge entrepreneurs would grudgingly admit that they got their ideas from a movie like Star Wars. But in this day and age where one of the most popular television shows is Big Bang Theory where geeks are the new “jocks” of society, it is now cool to make such announcements. These guys after all named a cutting edge company that will revolutionize communication after Princess Leia. So what we are talking about is a whole new way of looking at virtually everything that centers around human activity inspired by the limitless world created by a film series that has only become more popular as time has moved on—not less.
Just this past weekend the popular discovery show Myth Busters did a special on Star Wars and the cast had obvious fun with the topic with open—outright geeky joy. The important thing to conclude from these activities is the way that science fact is being driven by science fiction—where an idea is communicated through a story and the minds of society seek to manifest that idea into reality. With Star Wars this has already been a powerful force in our culture but it’s not one from the past only, but will continue well into the future. In the case of Leia Display Systems the televisions and telephones of tomorrow will be directly influenced by a fantasy science fiction film series which will catapult to even more popularity now that Disney is the force behind the movement. Without question these Leia Display Systems will find their way into the Disney Parks.
For me personally this new invention of Leia Display Systems means that I can have a Dejarik table within my lifetime. Dejarik is the chess game of the Star Wars universe. Dejarik was a popular game which withstood the test of time better than nearly any other game in that fictional galaxy. It originated as a Jedi game, though as it became much more widespread over time, many beings became unaware of its origins.
Dejarik was played on a hologame table, which comprised a hologram generator within a table-sized cylindrical base, with a black-and-white checkerboard pattern on the top surface. When active, holomonsters – full-color, three-dimensional hologram playing pieces measuring between 5-30 cm tall – would be projected on the board. The pieces all resembled creatures, real and mythic, from throughout the galaxy, including the Mantellian Savrip, Grimtaash the Molator, Ghhhk, Houjix, Ng’ok, Kintan strider, K’lor’slug, and the M’onnok. These pieces, when moved by the player, actually acted out the moves as if really specimens of their species. If the pieces were not used for a certain amount of time or the game was abandoned by both players, they would simulate boredom.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dejarik
It is only a matter of time before this game played only in the fantastic world of Star Wars will be played in homes the way Chess is played today. It will be just one aspect of a future shaped by Star Wars influence. It is important to understand why and how these influences do the work of molding society—and is why I’m so interested in Star Wars. On one hand education institutions have thought that they were shaping society with a huge influence of government pulling the strings—but in reality Star Wars as a work of art has had a momentous impact that is just now being realized. Much of the future technical innovation coming our way as a species will find the origin of their ideas in a darkened theater where Star Wars planted the seed.
One of those first very obvious seeds is the new holographic system by Leia Display Systems. The future is here and it’s relatively on schedule. In the past, many from the previous generation kept these kinds of technical innovations from being proposed to secure their own archaic ideas concocted from usually impure motivations. Colliding with the compactness of modern computing power and a generation raised on Star Wars, exciting new inventions are about to explode upon the marketplace. It was only about 7 years ago when I was seeking out the kind of compact cameras that were the size of a pin head for use in spy techniques. Such things cost $300 to $1000 dollars at The Spy Store back then. Now they are in the front and back of a paper-thin iPad for virtually no cost. Star Wars is specifically a creation of American cinema, but its reach is world-wide. In the case of Leia Display Systems, they are a European company. Star Wars is popular in virtually every country in the world and has touched minds in those far-flung regions that only a functionally healthy mythology can perform. And those benefits are just now beginning to come to us in the form of political discourse, technology, and philosophy that is unique to this period of time in history. The fledgling bud from a deeply planted seed that will soon grow into a new way of thinking where once before only dark, archaic thoughts once prevailed has arrived with the very exciting new developments at Leia Display Systems.
Rich Hoffman
January 9, 2014
Old Spice’s “Momsong”: The importance of moms and the risk of destroying their children
Over the weekend I saw what I think is one of the most effective commercial campaigns I have ever seen while watching some of the NFL playoff games. Old Spice aired its 60 second “Momsong” which was absolutely hilarious not just in a quirky way reminiscent of Monte Python humor or a Pee Wee’s Playhouse episode, but in a social metaphorical one. It actually brilliantly points to a central problem in modern “Western” society and dares an entire demographic to challenge the premise. That challenge will likely sell a lot of the Old Spice brand of deodorant, aftershave and soap. “Momsong” deals specifically with the pain that women experience watching the little boys they spent and sacrificed so much for—growing up, and having to hand away that care to another woman—a much younger woman. For most women, this is an epic crisis that they never fully get over and most will take that pain to their graves. It is the primary cause of overeating and mental disorders centering on female neurosis in that age bracket and is a major contributor to many modern social problems. The commercial had my wife and I laughing hard for a good part of the weekend and now several days later it is still funny. Have a look for yourself.
I think being a mom is the most important job in the world. There is nothing which more properly sets in motion the consciousness of a human being than the contributions of a mother. I don’t care if it is the CEO of a company, or the president of a nation—being a mom is the number one job in order of importance among all professions in the human race. There isn’t even a close second except perhaps fatherhood. However, I have watched more moms destroy their children right out of the gate because they held on too long to the lives of their little babies when they should have played a role in the launching of their lives. I say such a thing as I have walked two of my own children down the aisle of marriage—so I know something about this subject matter. Thinking back on my own youthful years where I was the gravity well that so many other rebellious young men grabbed on to so to escape their overbearing mothers, I deliberately provoked those moms into occasional melt downs to pay them back for what I saw them doing to my friends. One mother of a very close friend hated me so badly that she encouraged her son to hang out with known drug addicts and sexual perverts rather than Rich Hoffman who was symbolic of a virtual devil to their neurotic hearts. And this particular woman wasn’t the only one. In many homes all across Southern Ohio as there still is, was a virtual voodoo doll of “yours truly” made by mothers who saw me as the single greatest threat to their happiness because I encouraged their children to rebel away from the safety of their safe embrace and to leap boldly out into the danger of the world. I literally watched many moms behave not far off the mark of that Old Spice commercial—I watched more literal melt downs not much different from the mom who floated out of the couch at the end—across the floor and sorrowfully back into her seated position to conclude the commercial with a pathetic whimper. Typically it is another female that provokes this reaction from mothers—but in my case it was my personality who delivered these overly coddled young boys to women through my charisma, fast driving, and overly perilous lifestyle that made me public enemy number one in their book. And those emotions have lasted for decades, and nobody suffered more than my own mom who was very loving, very caring, and put a lot of effort into her thankless job. For that reason I rebelled harder than any room full of testosterone driven virulent males. The situation was so bad that literally every friend I had male and female behaved like the mothers in the Old Spice commercial to some extent or another. As over-the-top as that commercial appeared—I have seen firsthand the same behavior from moms of almost every person I grew up knowing.
My reasoning for provoking these poor mothers was not to torture them into mental breakdowns—which some of them actually submitted to. Even back then I had a very clear understanding of what I was doing and what my social role was in the greater society. As advanced as American culture appears technologically, we are very primitive psychologically and I knew of other cultures considered primitive that had very specific rituals designed to deal with this specific problem—the initiation into manhood. Girls do not have this problem as they become literal women the moment they develop breasts and begin having their menstrual cycle. Boys to men do not have this coming of age moment—a ritual which announces to them that they have arrived to manhood. Many cultures have circumcision rituals to mimic the menstrual cycle in women to allow young boys to have a psychological crisis which allows the mind to accept a new social role as a man. Other cultures have rituals where the women play a role of coddling the young boys until other men of a tribe dressed as monsters steal the boys from their mothers and take them away from their homes terrifying them into manhood. The message to the boys is that your mothers cannot save you, you must save yourself. The introduction of a crisis launches the boys into manhood and after the ritual the other men of the tribe treat the boy as an equal warrior.
In American culture—especially with the introduction of feminism there is no ritual for young boys. Young girls of course still have their menstrual cycles but boys are left to create their own manhood initiation and by default it is sexual experience which determines the men from the boys. Once a boy has sexual intercourse he can then proclaim to other males that he has arrived to manhood. It is this ritual that the Old Spice commercial is tapping in to. Mothers know that their little boys are attempting to break away from their loving embracing by “bagging and tagging” a young female who will then become the new female in his life—away from mother. Since the mother often these days does not have a loving relationship with her husband—a real male of her own sense feminism has taught her that she doesn’t need one—women have by default overly coddled their sons to fulfill their own maternal needs.
Women desire to love and be loved and in a healthy relationship with a husband—they can find that love which they desperately yearn for. Without that love, they become miserable specimens often prematurely becoming old, ugly, and bitter—they become the moms in the Old Spice commercial. Feminism has told women that they can substitute a man in their lives with a career—but they can’t. Women in the work place are still looking for love wherever they can find it, whether it be in an office stockroom, on top of a copying machine, or in a hotel lobby while traveling on the road with perfect strangers away from their wives. The career woman seeks such sexual conquests knowing they are stealing away men from their wives—their new mothers—and it touches a spot of joy lacking from their lives. But once the cloths go back on and the woman goes through a decade or two of these kinds of relationships they are emptier shells of people than the mother who cleaved desperately to her son out of fear of having something in her life to live for.
Old Spice is doing what I have done to young men and mothers for most of my life—daring moms not to be so narcotic, and young men to shake off their moms by buying such a rebellious product. I think the marketing is brilliant because it is tapping into a primal urge that is completely ignored in modern society—and is literally holding down our entire worldly culture. I never saw my rebellious actions as harmful to the mothers of my friends. I saw it as saving them. In some cases those women reconnected with their husbands after pouring their attention into their sons for over 15 years—ignoring the poor chaps—and out of anger against me—dusted off their relationships. Having a calculated crisis is much different from a crisis that happens without your control. I see the need for a ritual that delivers boys to men not just for their sake, but for the mothers who love them—for their own psychological preservation so that they can become productive grandparents and healthy contributors to society. I have seen many women carry grudges against the wives of their sons for decades because the moms never forgive the new women for how they wrecked their lives by tragically stealing away from them the object of their love—their sons.
The Old Spice commercial is brilliant in that they are even attempting to define this problem. When I first saw it I knew that somewhere at the Old Spice marketing department was a guy or a group people who understood this crises the way I did and it brought a smile to my face. The commercial will certainly help sales for Old Spice. But it will also bring to light a problem that is as old as time itself—the crisis of a mother and her sons and the need of all males to understand when, how, and why they must become men. Moms need to be a part of that process—not a hindrance and to that point—Old Spice has contributed not only a great commercial worthy of a Superbowl, but a work of art that speaks to a central problem in our very confused society.
Rich Hoffman
January 8, 2014
The American Terrorists: Why Michelle Obama split up her husband and the Dutch prime minister
The really hilarious thing about progressives is their duality nature—their living lie with every breath that they take because their actions defy their philosophic positions. Nothing more exacerbates that lie than the progressive excuses given for Barack Obama’s behavior with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt snapping selfies of themselves at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service with obvious flirtations. That in itself didn’t surprise me, after all aren’t these confused progressive types the very people dressing in drag at gay bars, attending Fantasy Fest in Key West, or flying to Cancun to spend long weekends at the Temptations Resort. Obama as a progressive and defender of the LGBT community obviously endorses strange deviant sexual behavior and swinging is part of that culture. Obviously the Clintons are swingers—so it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Michelle and Barack Obama support such relationships.
But it quickly became clear that Michelle isn’t into that kind of thing because she was angry about the behavior of her husband—so angry that she made him switch seats with her—which I thought was the biggest part of the story. But the behavior was only picked up on by a few remote conservative outlets. Most everyone else saw that Michelle was upset and assumed that it was just a normal issue of a wife reigning in a flirtatious husband from sexual activity that would flourish without her edit. But what is more telling is the fact that Obama’s infatuation with women who look like Helle Thorning-Schmidt should be obvious. Most young men pick wives who are most like their mothers—it’s a natural reaction to the development of their psyches. Helle Thorning-Schmidt in her mannerisms, in her presentation of herself, and in her skin color more resembles Obama’s mother than Michelle does. Deep insecurities about Obama’s past seem to have come out which would threaten Michelle’s current life, and she felt she needed to interject herself for her own self-preservation. It is this that the American people need to know about the situation which really hasn’t been discussed properly. Obviously what is about to be reported here could only be confirmed by Michelle Obama—but since her family, and her supporters are well-known to denying facts, lying, and behaving in an underhanded manner, then good old-fashioned detective work will have to do. The Obama family won’t be able to dispute any of these things, because if they could—honestly—they would. But they can’t. Silence is the testimony of the guilty.
Michelle was, according to Bill Ayers himself, working with his wife the Weather Underground Terrorist Bernadine Dohrn at the Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin a year ahead of Obama joining. The four got together for mutual benefit, the terrorists seeing in Obama a Trojan Horse into politics that could do what their bomb from the 70s couldn’t—destroy the evil imperial America from within. In 1995 Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn launched Obama’s political career from their living room once the socialist-oriented New Party member Alice Palmer announced that she wanted Obama as her successor in the state senate when she stepped down to run for Congress.
Obama has had some inconsistencies about his recollection of how he and Michelle met—but what is known was that they met at the law firm and it is of no coincidence that Dohrn and Ayers helped shape the relationship by pointing the two in the same political direction. Michelle wouldn’t be the first woman under the advice of a wiser older woman in Dohrn to grab hold of an upcoming star and ride it as far as it would take her. The trouble with Barack Obama was that his mother was a white woman, and a rather loosy-goosy one at that who loved interracial sex and had communist leanings formed by her own parents. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION—WARNING, THIS LINK LEADS TO NUDE PICTURES OF OBAMA’S MOTHER ALLEGEDLY TAKEN BY THE COMMUNIST FRANK MARSHELL DAVIS. So if Michelle was going to make a relationship work with Obama, she needed to make sure she kept the kind of women who Obama was naturally attracted to out of his life as much as possible.
At this point in his life Obama had already had several white girlfriends—which as a young man from an interracial union, was his prerogative. Michelle would have to change that by becoming the mother in his life—rather than his lover. Obama, understanding that he needed that kind of balance in his life to achieve any level of success yielded to it knowingly—and put his white skinned girlfriends of the past well behind him without looking back.
When Genevieve Cook first met Barack Obama in the kitchen of a mutual friend’s New York flat in 1983, he was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a dark leather jacket. As the night wore on, they sat close together on an orange beanbag in the hall while Cook swigged Baileys Irish Cream straight from the bottle. They were amazed at how much they had in common: both were children of divorced parents, both had lived all over the world and had never felt truly at home anywhere. They exchanged phone numbers. Within days, he was cooking her dinner at his apartment. ‘Then we went and talked in his bedroom,’ Cook recalled. ‘And then I spent the night with him. ‘It all felt very inevitable.’ For Genevieve Cook — to whom admittedly the President alludes to in his memoirs — she wasn’t the first white girlfriend in his life, nor the last.
As a young student in the early Eighties at Occidental College, a small arts university in Los Angeles, Obama developed a serious crush on another student Alexandra McNear, who was co-editor of a college literary magazine which published two of Obama’s poems. She was a white woman and had a presence much like his anthropology loving mother.
But once Obama got serious about a political career and knowing he needed to appeal to the minority voters around Chicago and greater Illinois to do it, old flames like Genevieve Cook and Alexandra McNear wouldn’t be very acceptable to voters. And if Obama was ever going to get high up in political office as he and Ayers planned, he’d need a nice traditional wife – like Michelle Obama to “darken” him up a bit and get people to forget about his past, his mother and connections to the Communist Party through Frank Marshell Davis. Ayers knew Obama needed more of a Jessie Jackson type of progressive representation than the one he and his wife projected—and that was the ticket to possibly even The White House over a ten-year span. Imperial America would never see it coming. Jackson at the time was at the height of his power and was bringing companies to their knees with unfettered guilt from their unsubstantiated role in American slavery. America couldn’t resist the communist underpinnings of Barack Obama or they’d be called a racist, but Obama needed Michelle to complete the public relations package.
Likely, Michelle knew from the beginning that this was her role in the whole affair. Arranged marriages are not uncommon in the world and Obama wasn’t the worst option. He was a genuine person who really believed things, so she could make it work. But she’d have to keep him focused on the tasks at hand, and for the most part she has. Unlike the Clintons the Obamas are fairly sexually conservative for progressives. They are more about radical social reform than personal pleasure.
Fast forward nearly 20 years to Nelson Mandela’s memorial service where the Obamas found themselves seated next to a nearly mirror image of Barack’s mother, Helle Thorning-Schmidt—a woman from a very permissive Danish culture where sex scandals are not even reported. In nearby France they are common and the topic of gossip. But in Denmark a woman like Helle Thorning-Schmidt could have sex in the streets with a menagerie of baboons and nobody would even snap a picture. Helle is the type of Prime Minster who in 2012 spotted Sex in the City actress Sarah Jessica Parker on the street and rushed up to introduce herself like a Catholic school girl just let out of the seminary attending her first boy band concert. It wasn’t that Helle was more attractive than Barack’s mother, it was that she is as liberated—something that Michelle cannot compete with in the bedroom or anywhere. So when Michelle saw her husband getting too loose with himself she pulled him together like she always does, and switched seats to make sure that the two world leaders didn’t get any ideas. Helle not really meaning any harm in relation to her culture took the hint and pulled herself together as did Barack—who dutifully listened to his wife and swapped seats leaning forward in his chair and spending much of the rest of the time defensively crossing his arms protecting himself from the embarrassment of the world’s eyes which were now upon him. It’s not like he intended anything malicious—it’s just the whole mother/son—husband/wife aspect of being in a relationship with an unnatural psychological mate—one that is foreign to him from his childhood years.
As much as Obama has had issues over where he’s born, how he grew up, who he knew in college, and where he actually attended, the real issues with the guy are the missing pieces from his past that he can never reconcile. Being a dutiful socialist, Obama believes that the greater good of society is more important than his individual happiness, so he will sacrifice that so that he can have the power to redistribute the wealth of the world for the better, a plan hatched years ago under not so much cloak and dagger tactics in Bill Ayers’ living room. But his yearnings are more for the kind of attention that a woman like Helle can provide not due to skin color—which is only reference, but mannerisms—a white woman willing to throw off the prejudice of society and sleep with a black man, and to pose nude for one of his only real father figures in Frank Marshell Davis. The open shirt blowing carelessly in the wind from such a woman holds more lustful euphemisms than a stack of pornography books because it reminds him of his dead mother and the incomplete relationship he had with her as a single parent hopping hopefully all her life from man to man.
Michelle didn’t make her husband switch seats because the eyes of the world was watching and might think something ill of the flirtations. That may have been the reason she presented it to Barack and Helle. She primarily did it to protect her marriage, and all that she had invested into a life which would fulfill the terrorist yearnings of her mentor Bernadine Dohrn who with her husband actually bombed the Pentagon on May 19, 1972. Ayers said of that day, “Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon. The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them. Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home; kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.” This was Michelle’s friend who worked at her law firm feeding into her hatred of America which was revealed in her Princeton college thesis illuminating her deep feelings of a race-obsessed worldview and incredible resistance to being “further integrated into a white cultural and social structure that would only allow her to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.” Dohrn directed her anger and with her husband taught the Obamas how they beat the rap during the Pentagon bombing—how to deny, deny, lie, deny, and lie again for the greater good—for the fight for social justice.
Michelle listened to Bernadine Dohrn and bedded her future husband. She became a first lady in the process and everything and more that was planned in that Bill Ayers living room. The promises by his wife, her co-worker came true. They now can spend millions of dollars of looted money from those oppressors she wrote about in her Princeton thesis and laugh about it as they carve up the nation in a way that their terrorist mentors never dreamed possible. And as far as she has come, and the sacrifices she made along the way, nothing is going to get in the way—especially a pretty Danish Prime Minister and the flirtations of her husband with a mother figure that if she were not in his life would likely be the object of his obsession.
So she sat between them…………………………….
Read more of this terrorist past from a CBS report in 2008—before Obama was elected, and before Glenn Beck exposed many of these things later on. The following report came before CBS became concerned that they’d be blacklisted in the press room if they didn’t play ball with a tyrannical regime lead by the Obamas and their crusade to remake America into the image of some Chicago terrorists and a mother who slept her way around the world.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-bad-company-of-barack-obama/
Rich Hoffman
January 7, 2014
The Real Robber Barrons of Puget Sound: Labor union votes for a new contract
What happens when you pay people who generally aren’t worth it over $100,000 a year–they operate a union against productivity which is what Boeing narrowly escaped over the weekend with a 51 to 49 vote among approximately 31,000 eligible members. Making that kind of money the machinist union at Boeing is the economy of Puget Sound and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is basically their own local government. Because of their belief in the evils of capitalism they nearly drove Boeing as a company to move their new 777X design build with its composite wing out of Washington to be manufactured in right-to-work states where the union could not wreck the development of the new state-of-the-art plane. Most of the members of the machinist union do not have the technical aptitude to build a new airplane from scratch let alone sell it to markets all over the world. Yet they are paid six figures because of the union infiltration into a successful American company and they buy their boats, their new trucks, and live their relatively opulent lives blissfully unaware of what makes a company work—or profitable. Their union preaches against the evils of profit—yet they demand more and more money with every contract. For this latest contract the members received a $10,000 signing bonus and money towards a 401K plan. Still, the margin of victory for Boeing was razor-thin. Many of the 49% of the union members who voted against the contract believe the company should continue to fund their pensions. They don’t want the 401K plan. They obviously don’t fathom that Boeing cannot continue to throw money at them in such a rate for indefinite periods of time—because they are disconnected from where the money comes from. For them, the planes arrive on the shop floor, they assemble them, and they leave. They have little to do with the design process, the sales and marketing, or the delivery. They simply show up, do some work, and leave with their six figure incomes.
To get an idea of how much money the machinist make at Boeing understand that there are 11 different pay grades depending on job categories. At Boeing the lowest level machinist are considered Grade 1 which stars at about $25,000 per year and tops out around $66,000 per year. The top-level union workers before the contract made more than $90,000 in base pay annually not counting shift differentials, overtime or incentive payments. After the contract those workers will top out over six figures in base salary. Clearly this was the difference in the vote. Many of the aging workforce at Boeing saw the writing on the wall. In the Puget Sound/Evertt area where the Boeing plants reside the median household income is about $47,000 a year. If Boeing packed up and left—which they clearly intended to do so to avoid more work stoppages in the future from their striking labor force, there is no place else capable of paying employees such large sums of money for performing jobs that are only worth half that value.
Boeing has been throwing money at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers for decades and like gambling addicts they have spent it as fast as it has come in and continued to reach their hand out for more, and more, and more until the company finally looked to move from the Evertt area. The decisions Boeing were faced with reminded me of my hometown where I once worked at Cincinnati Milicron—which is now a parking lot. A vast complex that resembled a small city is now completely gone down in Oakley just north of Cincinnati along I-71. All the skill that was employed there is gone. Just to the west of that location was the old Norwood General Motors plant which built the old Camero. It’s now gone—destroyed by the parasitic unions. Just to the north up in Hamilton, is the old Fisher Body plant for General Motors where my grandfather worked. Long after his death my grandmother continued to give me comic book money from the retirement benefits he received as well as thousands of other retired GM workers all over the country who were not productively working any longer. General Motors was trying to cover all those legacy costs with newer workers in a pyramid scheme concocted by the unions which did not add up. To this day the old Fisher Body building is still standing, but the company is gone. It’s primarily just warehouse space now. Over to the east in Middletown was a town—once a thriving place flourishing off the old Armco Steel Plant. The wage structure got out of control there and most of the orders for business went away. It is now AK Steel but employs far fewer people than it once did and is only a distant shadow of its former self. The result is that the economy of Middletown crashed and burned. Homes that should be $70,000 in value are $20,000, and the area is riddled with crime. As people lost their jobs they became addicted to welfare and the quality of life for the once prosperous town dried up like a gold mine in the Old West once the precious element ran out. That is the eventual future of Puget Sound. This latest contract only buys a little more time. It will cost Boeing a lot of money to move their operation to another state, so it was cheaper to throw $10,000 bonus checks at workers so they could pay off their new Ford F350s or plan to buy a new boat. Boeing has a hot new plane to build and sell, so they took the lesser of the two evils. But why should they be in such a situation and why would the Department of Labor side with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and not Boeing in forcing the job provider to bleed itself dry to appease a bunch of out-of-touch workers bred under a communist labor union system designed to destroy American business.
In the videos above the guys at PJ Media hosted by Bill Whittle explore this topic, and it is worth watching. The guest Dr. Burt Folsom told the story of the so-called Robber Barrons at the start of the progressive era, (just prior to the Twentieth Century) when many of the American labor unions were just getting started. Because of their hatred of capitalism the government went after the Robber Barrons, such as the rail road industry and went on anti-trust witch hunts and essentially through federal force took away the power of American business and handed it over to the workers of manufacturing. The manipulative power that the Robber Barrons formally had were now in possession of the solidarity effort of the labor unions—which turned out to be just as corrupt, and destructive. The biggest difference is that the labor unions didn’t create jobs, as the Robber Barrons did. With two evils being equal—that of human greed—the companies created by Robber Barrons through capitalism at least provided good jobs whereas the labor unions provided nothing but labor. Labor can be found elsewhere if it becomes too problematic, but Robber Barrons who create jobs—cannot. They are few and rare as gold whereas general labor who can push a button on a CNC controller and read micrometers into the thousands of an inch are quite common.
The vote at Boeing over the weekend which upset many of the labor union members is the grudging realization that without Boeing in Everett, Washington, there is nothing that will replace their loss and politicians, union leaders and all their F350 driving members with their $10,000 bonus checks are at the mercy of those who create the jobs. 100 years of progressivism has come smashing against a cold reality that should have been obvious from the start. Eventually the union demands will outpace Boeing’s ability, or willingness to pay off the workers with bonus checks and excessively high salary—and Boeing will move to a right-to-work state or possibly move their operation to another country where they can obtain stable labor without such outrageous expectations. But for now, with a narrow union vote, some of the members are beginning to see the writing on the wall and is appreciating Boeing not as a Robber Barron company that has been forced to become a heavily subsidized company of political entrepreneurialism, but for its roots as a Market Entrepreneur. It was the labor unions which pushed Boeing into a relationship with politics to protect itself from the thieving hands of an ungrateful workforce—and the rest has been downhill—except that Boeing still makes cool airplanes that sell very well—which is the only bright spot of an otherwise bleak future.
Watch the videos above to learn more.
Rich Hoffman
January 6, 2014
Dennis Van Roekel’s Epic Failure: An out of control unfunded teacher pension system
When National Education Association president Dennis van Roekel states that there “is no teacher pension crises” among his members, he is functioning from a level of denial common among left-winged nut-case progressives. The Ohio Education Association, (an affiliate of the NEA) with net assets of negative $11.5 million, and a $1.2 million deficit in 2011-12 paid only $8.2 million in pension costs. The reason that Roekel doesn’t believe this isn’t a crises is because he fully expects state governments to cover the gap—and to do that—taxes will have to be raised on residents. This is expected by the unions because of their government monopoly status over the education system where they can drive up costs to any level they wish then impose on tax payers their reckless burden without fear of losing that business—because under government law they have access to virtually every child in America. So from Roekel’s point of view—it’s not a crises—because he expects someone in government to wrestle the money away from the public for his members with manipulation or force.
Recently Roekel made a bit of a splash with the liberal progressive think tank The Center for American Progress when he proposed getting rid of the “outdated” “step-and-lane” system. This brought about some upturned pinky golf claps among politicians and ass-sniffing, brown-nosing education professionals for its “forward” thinking. Yet Roekel is only performing the traditional dog and pony union show where their monopoly power dictates progressive radicalism of a magnitude equivalent to domestic terrorism. His ultimate solution for everything is higher taxes to provide a product that liberalizes American youth with a not so disguised babysitting service as parents struggle to work two jobs to pay for everything. Read more about the ACP story at the link below:
The Education Intelligence Agency report recently looked at the unfunded liabilities of the NEA union to begin understanding the amount of trouble that is coming straight at Roekel’s government monopoly enterprise and illuminated how ridiculously foolish—and arrogant Roekel’s denial that there is no pension crises facing his members or the states that employee them really are. Roekel has been destructively misleading. The following is text from the Education Intelligence Agency website followed by the origin link.
14 state teachers unions have almost $700 million in unfunded liabilities
December 24, 2013
Mike Antonucci
Mike is the director of the Education Intelligence Agency and has covered the education beat since 1993.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The good folks at Bellwether Education Partners created a web site called TeacherPensions.org in order to focus some much-needed attention on the structure of the retirement system and its financial implications. The site features a range of opinions about teacher pensions, including that of National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel, who says flatly: “There is no teacher pension crisis.”
Van Roekel defends the defined benefit system, and explains that a key principle of the system is “When actuarial liabilities exceed actuarial assets, the state and/or employer must make the necessary additional contributions to amortize the unfunded liability in no more than 30 years.”
That seems like a pretty simple solution, but if it were, perhaps Van Roekel’s own organization and its affiliates would not be experiencing their own mammoth shortfalls, due mostly to the pensions and retiree health care benefits they granted their own employees.
An Education Intelligence Agency analysis of 2011-12 Internal Revenue Service filings reveals 14 NEA state affiliates do not have the financial assets to match their liabilities and total almost $700 million in combined debt.
The ability of these affiliates to address their long-term debt by increasing pension contributions, as Van Roekel suggests, is compromised by their short-term debt. Nine of the 14 affiliates had deficits in 2011-12. In fact, the combined spending of all of NEA’s state affiliates exceeded their combined income by almost $24 million.
Even at the national level, NEA’s pension plan for its 2,600 employees and retirees was only 87.9 percent funded in 2012, down from 94.2 percent in 2010.
EIA has constructed a table that lists each of NEA’s state affiliates, its budget deficit or surplus for 2011-12 and its net assets, positive or negative, as of the end of the 2011-12 school year. For purposes of comparison, the table also lists the number of days each affiliate could operate solely on reserves based on its 2011-12 expenditures and net assets.
The 14 state affiliates with a negative net worth are:
* New York State United Teachers, with net assets of negative $302.8 million and a $24 million deficit in 2011-12. NYSUT contributed almost $30.8 million to its employee pension plan that year.
* Michigan Education Association, with net assets of negative $160.5 million, and a $4.8 million deficit in 2011-12. MEA contributed $14.1 million to its employee pension plan, and instituted a three-year, $50 annual assessment on its members for the express purpose of funding the staff pension.
* New Jersey Education Association, with net assets of negative $77.5 million. NJEA had a $13.2 million surplus in 2011-12, even after contributing $17.1 million to pension costs.
* Washington Education Association, with net assets of negative $35.1 million, and a $3.7 million deficit in 2011-12. WEA contributed $8.1 million to its employee pension plan.
* Massachusetts Teachers Association, with net assets of negative $26.7 million. MTA had a $7.8 million surplus in 2011-12 after contributing $4.1 million to its employee pension plan.
* Illinois Education Association, with net assets of negative $17.7 million, and a $17.9 million deficit in 2011-12. IEA paid $26.3 million to its employee pension plan. Despite its own mess, IEA is adamantly opposedto the Illinois state government’s efforts to address public employee pension debt.
* Indiana State Teachers Association, with net assets of negative $16.4 million, and a $4.5 million deficit in 2011-12. ISTA paid $4.1 million toward employee pensions.
* Iowa State Education Association, with net assets of negative $12.7 million, and a $4.3 million deficit in 2011-12. ISEA paid $2.2 million into its employee pension plan.
* Ohio Education Association, with net assets of negative $11.5 million, and a $1.2 million deficit in 2011-12. OEA paid $8.2 million in pension costs.
* Texas State Teachers Association, with net assets of negative $11.3 million, and a $243,000 deficit in 2011-12. TSTA contributed $1.4 million to its pension plan, and holds a $1.6 million quasi-endowment “to sustain the association for the long-term.”
* Pennsylvania State Education Association, with net assets of negative $8.3 million, though it did have a $9.2 million surplus in 2011-12, suggesting another similar year would put it in the black. It spent $7.3 million on pensions.
* Virginia Education Association, with net assets of negative $5.1 million, and a budget surplus of $1 million. VEA contributed almost $2.2 million to its employee pension plan.
* West Virginia Education Association, with net assets of negative $2.2 million, and a budget surplus of $132,000. It is unclear how much WVEA contributed to its employee pension plan in 2011-12, but its pension liabilities totaled $3.7 million.
* Georgia Association of Educators, with net assets of negative $1.8 million, and a $476,000 deficit in 2011-12. GAE paid $746,000 to its employee pension plan.
NEA’s largest affiliates are overrepresented on this list. This is problematic because the health of the large affiliates, particularly in collective bargaining states with agency fee provisions, enables NEA national to funnel crucial subsidies to its small affiliates. Many small affiliates could not sustain themselves at current levels without those funds.
As a union, NEA believes state governments should extract more revenues from taxpayers to sustain the defined benefit system of public employees. As an employer, NEA is aware of the pitfalls of extracting more dues money from members to sustain the much more generous defined benefit system of union employees.
It’s a race against time for NEA as it attempts to stave off public pension reform before it is swamped by its own private pension costs.
The good thing about these unfunded liabilities is that currently the NEA is trying to cover those costs with their union dues which means that they will have to increase those dues among their members. That probably won’t be very popular. This is also leaving little money for PAC funding which means less money for donations into progressive candidates. As a former math teacher it would be assumed that Roekel would know this—but he doesn’t. He’s preaching the same tired garbage which has made public education completely irrelevant over the last thirty years—really since the creation of the Department of Education in 1979 when education became centrally planned by the federal government. The only benefactors have been the unions—certainly not the students. Roekel’s concerns are primarily teacher recruitment and licensing of teachers as if this would stop the onslaught of his members who are trying to get into the pants of their students on an epic scale. Roekel is ignoring that psychological and specifically “progressive” problem as vigorously as he’s ignoring the pension system issues. But what would anybody expect from a former teacher who is now president of the largest labor union in America.
The bottom line is that Roekel’s perspective is shaped by the security that he has the power of the IRS at his back—as wind in his sails. He knows that his union can recklessly spend over budget—as they have for years because the mandate for states and their tax payers is to just cover the tab without thought or question because the lives of their children are held as extortion pieces for ransom. The NEA unfunded liabilities are just one aspect of a terrible web of failure coming from public education which is completely controlled by progressive labor unions. And that aspect alone should dictate why such organizations should be eradicated from the earth—forever.
Rich Hoffman
