Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 425
November 27, 2013
School Superintendent of Stuebenville Charged With Cover-up: Three other employees also charged during rape investigation
If not for blogs like this one, Twitter, and YouTube the crimes at Steubenville would have been covered up like many of the other crimes do in public education. From the very beginning I stated that a cover-up was highly likely. All public schools share the trend of sacrificing individuals to the collective whole, and when it comes to high school football, individuals are routinely sacrificed as athletes are often the symbolic stars of their community. The tendency when school athletes commit crimes is to cover up the evidence so the entire community can continue to idolize the heroes of the football field and rally behind the schools they represent in battle. Behind those athletes is a progressive education system that employees a lot of people off tax payer money, and schools need those tax payers to avoid looking too closely at real school activities—where scandals are common—not rare. So I declared the scope of the crime in previous articles that turned out to be very prophetic. CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR REVIEW.
Before social media, a slick public relations employee would have swept this rape case under the rug, like they do many thousands of cases all across the country. In Steubenville, Ohio it was only social media that exposed the crime in such a way that the media actually covered the story—which they usually don’t. Because of the video evidence, which is rare, news outlets had to cover the information once it was brought to people’s eyes—and the case exploded into a national spectacle. Many people didn’t want to believe that the events occurred, and many news outlets attempted to put on a happy face, while many in the Steubenville community who wanted to continue worshiping their football stars attacked the rape victim and her parents for saying anything about the issue—or “tempting” the boys in the first place. All of the ugliness of high school sports, public education, and the real relationship they all have with the communities which fund them was exposed in a raw fashion that many people didn’t know what to do with.
So it came to my eyes early on Monday the following AP news wire story confirming all that I had said previously, and a great relief swept over me. The sadness for the poor girl was something I already dealt with—but this most recent news was the granting of a Thanksgiving Day wish provided early—justice for the victim and exposure of what public education is truly about—collectivism, sacrifice, and cover-ups.
STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (AP) – A school superintendent and three more people have been charged by a grand jury that investigated whether other laws were broken in the rape of a 16-year-old West Virginia girl last year in eastern Ohio.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced the charges Monday in Steubenville
William Rhinaman, 53, director of technology at Steubenville High School, faces four counts: tampering with evidence, obstructing justice, obstructing official business and perjury in connection with the case, DeWine said. Rhinaman was arrested Monday.
If convicted, he could face four years behind bars, more time than the two convicted boys will serve.
Details of the indictment, including what kind of evidence was allegedly tampered with, were not immediately available.
“This is the first indictment in an ongoing grand jury investigation,” DeWine said in a prepared statement. “Our goal remains to uncover the truth, and our investigation continues.”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/08/justice/ohio-steubenville-rape-arrest/
Most of the time, including what I have said about my home school district of Lakota, everything comes true—sometimes it takes months, sometimes years, but eventually, when I open my mouth about something—it comes true in nearly the exact fashion that I frame it. It’s not because I’m a prophet of some kind receiving mystical guidance from beyond the grave—but because of Robert Pirsig’s train explanation regarding the metaphysics of quality. When you live on the edge of the train, you see things before those in the caboose do. Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom is all about that cutting edge. So the Steubenville grand jury charges are the only real payment I get for the work that goes into this “New Media” form of reporting. It is why I do this kind of thing—because if somebody doesn’t—these cases get swept under the rug by traditional media 100% of the time. They always have, and will continue unless “New Media” reporters expose them.
In the case of Steubenville it was Deric Lostutter who exposed the rape from the school cover-up, and if he hadn’t posted the images sent to him by members of a group of computer hackers working in the collective hive of “Anonymous” there would have been no justice in the case at all. The school officials would have covered up another crime, and life would have returned to normal for the members of the Steubenville community. That is why the FBI raided Lostutter to begin harassing him once he was discovered as the man behind the exposure—which I have also explained in previous articles. CLICK BELOW TO REVIEW.
http://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/why-good-men-wear-a-mask-the-case-of-deric-lostutter/
However, Lostutter is far from a hero in the “Anonymous” circles because he has gained individual fame for his stance in protecting the rights of the Steubenville victim. Since his fame from the case, “Anonymous” has distanced themselves from him in the usual fashion. “Anonymous” members tend to think the way their public educations taught them to, as anarchists, socialists, Marxists and other radical types all centering around collective identity—which is why they call themselves the “hive.” They see themselves as a hive of bees I suppose serving some higher purpose. They certainly aren’t capitalists, and once Lostutter showed a knack for dealing with the media and achieved some fame, he had distinguished himself as an individual which is a big no, no with “Anonymous.” Here is a sampling of their thinking complete with grammatical issues:
Deric Lostuttter began once again seeking media attention by doing media interviews on behalf of Anonymous, and the organizers of #opmaryville. An operation to bring justice to a teenage victim and her family after a sexual assault occurred by football players in a tiny Ohio town
The victim and her family brought charges against Players on the high school football team, but those charges were promptly dismissed by local prosecuting attorneys(citing lack of evidence and the victims refusal to cooperate), and the victim’s home was burnt to the ground prompting the family to get out of town. Maryville’s Local sherrif quoted as saying that “they did all that they could, but charges were dropped due to lack of evidence and the victim and her family just need to get over it and move on.” The victim and her family accuse the sherriff and prosecutors of lying, and deny not cooperating.
As Anonymous geared up to rally behind the victim and her family, Maryville’s official sites were taken offline to protect the town servers, and the local sherriff began to mock the Anonymous Hive.
Lostutter, who as of Monday began tweeting and posting about the case on his facebook was told early on by members of anonymous that he would not be a part of this operation, as he’s a “famefagging attention seeker” and for the op to go right, his fake anonymous ass should stay the fuck out of things.” Lostutter then began once again comparing himself to Barret Brown, Jeremey Hammond, and Edward Snowden continued to post about Maryville even issuing a false press release about #opmaryville from his twitter. Lostutter now dubbed, The Leader of Anonymous in one article in which he admitted he knew nothing about #opmaryville. Which makes no sense because usually when you’re interviewed it’s because you have direct knowledge of what’s goin on. The Daily Dot quickly retracted the title of Anon Leader, but not until after a internet backlash which pissed off thousands. This however didn’t stop Lostutter from continuing to seek out media interviews as the “Spokesman for Anonymous” in which he continued to speak for and about #opmaryville without being involved or having any knowledge of the real Anons organizing the operation.
So there is a lot going on regarding the Steubenville case, but the bottom line is that it took the courage of individuals to expose the various levels of collectivism which attempted to cover up the crime. Even with the New Media outlets that put the story on the front page of newspapers and brought national coverage to the issue collectivism is still the impediment to justice, but because of people like Lostutter, the ability to sacrifice single victims to the plight of a collective whole has been greatly minimized.
I am happy to see justice done, and I will enjoy my Thanksgiving that much more knowing corrupt school officials are going to jail over the incident. There are a lot more names to add to the list of indictments from thousands of schools all over the country doing essentially the same thing, but Steubenville is a good place to start—and the four officials citied are simply the first—they won’t be the last. Because of “New Media,” traditional media must compete, and that spells doom for school districts and communities everywhere who are accustomed to cover-ups like the one in Steubenville. And that is something to truly be “thankful” for.
Rich Hoffman
November 26, 2013
Cindy Carpenter and Mrs. Hyde: Butler County RINOs and deceitful politics
In the recording below from 700 WLW Bill Cunningham found himself in the middle of Butler County Republican politics when Commissioner Cindy Carpenter was engaged in yet another debacle on his show. Cunningham joked to Cindy who was on the radio to defend accusations and possible indictments against her–that Butler County does not have any Democrats so Republicans have taken to fighting each other as Carpenter was at odds with the county prosecutor. I think it was lost to Cunningham that what he said was actually quite wrong. A lot, (too many) politicians in Butler County like Commissioner Don Dixon are former Democrats just like Cunningham used to be—they are the epitome of the whole RINO accusation—“Republican In Name Only.” Dixon used to lead the Democrats in Butler County in the 90’s and only changed parties when he realized that it would be easier to win elections if he called himself a Republican. During the last trustee race in the very conservative West Chester Township, Cathy Stoker was a Democrat but she didn’t dare put that information on her campaign literature. Instead she put “fiscal conservative,” so to give the impression that she was a conservative. Her running mate, Lee Wong—who is a functional socialist literally called himself a Republican—complete with the little elephant on his yard signs. Later during the Cunningham broadcast with Commissioner Carpenter their mutual friend Sheriff Jones came on and essentially called Carpenter a liar. Jones thinks of himself as a Republican, yet he supports labor unions and votes for school levies. His social behavior is quite liberal, yet he is considered a staunch Republican, just like his friend the radio host Cunningham. A lot of these people put on the mask of conservativism to win audience approval, but they legislate like bleeding heart liberals and are directly responsible for spreading the expansion of government. Because most of the world sees and hears these kinds of people as the faces of Republicanism, real conservatives who live as traditional Americans, and are actually philosophically conservative seem as though they are extremists. Meanwhile, these mask wearing conservatives get themselves involved in so many different aspects of politics that they lose track of what they said to whom and when they said it. This is apparently what has happened to Cindy Carpenter who came on the Bill Cunningham Show to dispel the perception of her political blunders. At the end of the broadcast she was dismissed by her Republican buddy and political fundraiser Sheriff Jones who sided with the prosecutor over the controversial incident. CLICK TO REVIEW.
Many of the problems that Cindy has had during her tenure as Commissioner has been her tendency to abuse her office for little things like free baby sitting services and intimidating others with a lot of yelling and screaming. I might be inclined to admire Cindy’s combativeness if she didn’t have elements of big government expansion about her—which comes out in conversations like what she had on 700 WLW. She was quick to point out in her interview that she was a conservative, as though she needed to explain her actions to confirm it. However, the troubling aspect of her discussion is that she declared Sheriff Jones had told her he’d back her over her confrontation with the Butler Country Prosecutor, which was the theme of her latest trouble.
This is the direct result of politicians who are not philosophically aligned by conservative beliefs and instead use the Republican Party as a platform to work as career politicians. When these politicians have to fake being conservatives to get elected in a conservative area, they are often caught in contradictions like what Cindy has found herself in. I believe she has convinced herself that she’s a Republican in the same way that John McCain or Chris Christie believes they are hard-core conservatives—yet deep down inside they are bleeding heart liberals who believe that government should intrude on people’s lives—and interfere with justice based on their interpretation of a moral code—which is established by the same type of politicians.
This behavior from Cindy is not new; it has gone on for a long time and seems to be part of the way she operates. Former Commissioner Chuck Furman addressed his concerns regarding Cindy Carpenter’s temper tantrums and emotional tirades in the Commissioner’s office not that long ago. If I were in Cindy’s position, it is likely that many people would be intimidated and frightened also and often, so I don’t begrudge her of that. I understand dropping the “F” bomb in meetings and harassing people who are standing in the way of justice—but whose justice? That is the million dollar question. As a conservative, I know where the line is, but for someone who is a wanna-be conservative– a RINO—their opinions are likely shaped by liberal politics dressed behind a conservative mask—and that is not OK.
Below is a letter from Commissioner Furman to Carpenter which reflects accurately the current trouble that Cindy is having—yet this letter is over a year and a half old as of this writing. It shows a pattern of behavior that is quite destructive. Cindy’s response to the letter can be seen by clicking on the hot link attached to the letter.
To: Cindy Carpenter, Commissioner
Unfortunately, I have no remedy for this situation, but I refuse to be silent about it.
From: Chuck Furmon, Commissioner
CC: Don Dixon, Butler County Commissioner
Mike Campbell, Butler County Administrator
Cindy’s response to Furman was similar to what was heard on Cunningham’s show. She presented a logical explanation for everything which sounded good and makes you want to shake your head in acknowledgment—but something isn’t quite right about it. Someone isn’t telling the truth……….either Furman wasn’t being truthful or Carpenter wasn’t. I know Chuck a bit, and I doubt it’s him. Cindy I wasn’t so sure about, although the time or two that I met her she seemed like a nice stable person. She certainly didn’t seem like such a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality which has persistently followed her antics as an elected representative since 2010.
Yet during the Cunningham interview the Mr. Hyde personality was exposed toward the end. Sheriff Jones is too politically astute to lie on 50,000 watts of AM radio to hundreds of thousands of people all over Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Sheriff Jones might be walking the line between Republicans and Democrats with the skill of a circus act, but he’s not a liar. So that leaves Carpenter rather exposed in an uncomfortable way that deserves consideration.
I admire about Cindy her fight, her drive, and her pursuit of justice. Yet, her beliefs are way too liberal for me—she is a big government mind pretending to be a conservative. She is at best a moderate Republican and if Butler County were a different kind of place where liberal politics were tolerated, I suspect she would be a Democrat similar to the kind of man Todd Portune is in Hamilton County. I have a history with Todd as well, and I know his politics well—and Cindy is far closer to someone like him ideologically than she is a Republican like T.C. Rogers, the commissioner who took Chuck Furman’s seat during the 2012 election. Many believe that Butler County has three conservative Republican commissioners, but really they have only one in T.C. Don Dixon is a former head of the Democratic Party and is Republican in name only. He is a RINO without question. And not far to the right of the political spectrum of Don is Cindy Carpenter. Under a real tally of values Butler County is currently being led by two Democrats and one Republican—which is a deception that is not forgivable.
When people live their lives around lies, they force themselves to become a schizophrenic type of personality—a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in real life. Cindy’s three year history shows that to the public she can display Doctor Jekyll—who is mild-mannered and articulate personality that is Republican. But in the halls of the commissioner’s office screaming at people for strange reasons, forcing security to baby sit her kids while she attends meetings, and running around playing a bleeding heart liberal as a social service worker using the power of her office to impose her will—she shows the Mr. Hyde—and that person is a Democrat. It’s often not easy to see until provoked, but eventually the monster comes out and shows itself—and that’s what happened during the interview Carpenter gave to Bill Cunningham.
I don’t mind if people stand by what they are and believe what they believe. I admire it in fact, and I will fight for those people to maintain that right. I believe in the marketplace of ideals fighting it out for the betterment of everyone. But that process doesn’t work if people hide what they really are and attempt to pull a blanket of deception over the actual monsters that drive them as people. For that reason alone I won’t support Cindy Carpenter in the next election—because it is obvious she has not been completely honest about what she is, and what she believes. Politicians who are RINO’s because they know they cannot be elected into office any other way are worse than Democrats because they are attempting to deceive the public at the very start of their public service—and that makes them unqualified of an office of any kind—and untrustworthy of tax payer dollars.
Rich Hoffman
November 25, 2013
The Socialist Kshama Sawant: Who is she, where did she come from and why unions are bad
Most of the socialists and hard-core communists functioning in America today do not call themselves by those names. They call themselves, Democrats, progressives, or even anarchists. They do not declare what they are—and in many cases they do not know where their thoughts came from. If someone believes that corporations must “share” their profits, and that capitalism is bad, which is the theme in virtually every public school in America—those beliefs come from socialism—a European concept imported to America like a bad beer covered in rat piss.
Most school boards, most city councils, all labor unions, most politicians at the state and federal level have accepted elements of socialism into their thought processes. But occasionally one gets elected into office on a platform without the mask of the Democratic Party—who runs as a socialist and wins. This is the case of Seattle’s newly elected Socialist councilwoman Kshama Sawant who recently accused aerospace and defense giant Boeing on Monday of “economic terrorism” and told Boeing machinists “The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine.” Sawant’s comments were made at a rally organized by machinists after they rejected a deal that would reduce pensions for union members in return for guaranteed jobs in Everett, Wash., building 777X Boeing airliners for eight years.
Now Boeing is considering taking those jobs elsewhere.
“That will be nothing short of economic terrorism because it’s going to devastate the state’s economy,” Sawant told the crowd.
Really! Let me come back to this in a minute, but first let’s learn who Kshama Sawant is, because she has higher ambitions.
Kshama Sawant is a Seattle City Council member-elect.[2] A former software engineer from India, Sawant became a socialist activist and part-time economics professor in Seattle after emigrating to the United States. She held part-time teaching positions at Seattle Central Community College and Seattle University[3] and was a visiting assistant professor at Washington and Lee University.[4]Sawant ran unsuccessfully for the Washington State House of Representatives before winning a seat on the Seattle City Council, making her the first socialist to win a city-wide election in Seattle since the radical progressive Anna Louise Strong was elected to the School Board in 1916.(There’s a surprise, a radical progressive socialist on a school board)[2][5][6]
Sawant was born to Vasundhara and H. T. Ramanujam in Pune, India in a middle class family of the Brahmin caste.[5][7][8] Sawant’s mother is a retired principal and her father, a civil engineer, was killed by a drunk driver when she was 13.[9] Sawant’s observations of poverty in her native country and her unhappiness with the Indian caste system helped shape her political views before her adoption of socialism.[8][10] Sawant grew up in Mumbai where she later studied computer science and graduated with a B.Sc from the University of Mumbai in 1994. Sawant married her husband Vivek, an engineer at Microsoft, and moved to the United States.[11] After moving to the United States Sawant decided to abandon the computer engineering field. She began to pursue study in economics due to what she described as her own “questions of economic inequality.”[12] She entered the economics program at North Carolina State University where she earned a PhD. Her dissertation was titled Elderly Labor Supply in a Rural, Less Developed Economy.[5][13] Sawant moved to Seattle in 2006 and, after hearing a speech by a Socialist Alternative organizer, became a socialist. She became a United States citizen in 2010.[14] Sawant and her husband Vivek are separated.[7]
After losing her run for the House Sawant entered the race for Seattle City Council with a campaign organized by Socialist Alternative.[12] She won 35% of the vote in the August primary election, and advanced into the general election for the at-large council position 2[21] against incumbent Richard Conlin, making her the first socialist to advance to a general election in Seattle since 1991.[22] Conlin’s fundraising was double that of Sawant’s,[23] and on election night Sawant was down by 6,193 votes[2] but refused to concede.[24] Late ballots consistently favored Sawant[25] and on Novemeber 15, 2013, Conlin conceded to Sawant after late returns showed him down by 1,640 votes or approximately 1% of the vote.[2][26]
The last socialist on the city council was A. W. Piper, who served 1877-1879,[27][28] notwithstanding Representative Hugh De Lacy, a Democrat whom historian Harvey Klehr said was secretly a communist when elected to the city council in 1937.[29]
After her victory Sawant cautioned supporters that, going forward, her opponents would attempt to marginalize her and create both confusion and division among her supporters.[30]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshama_Sawant
America doesn’t have a caste system like Sawant experienced in India, yet she came to the States and studied under our universities by socialist professors and found herself pulled into socialist circles in Seattle. She became a citizen so she can run for office and the guy who brought her to America is no longer in the picture and now she’s a loose cannon from some far away land that functioned under socialism, communism, and various forms of collectivism. Now she is bringing that mentality to American business. And here is why Sawant is out of her mind crazy—because Boeing like all the large American aerospace manufacturers have discovered that they have to move their operations to right-to-work states in order to stay relevant—economically viable. The competition against America is places like Asia where the ideal of personal sacrifice is expected, so long hours, torturous work, and round the clock service is the norm, not the exception. Boeing cannot hold its own if a labor union can shut down its doors every couple of years with the threat of a strike, or wages that are too high. Or work hours too short where Boeing must pay $30 to $50 dollars an hour for work performed over 40 hours per week, or even over 8 hours per day. The Asian markets are not held to those standards and will out-perform American aviation if left under the leadership of the socialist labor unions and council women like Sawant.
Socialists like Kshama Sawant do not understand a basic premise of economics even though she holds a PhD. Her socialist professors during their studies of Marx, Lenin, and the European Union neglected the basic concept of American gumption—the thrill of achieving a task if profit is on the horizon. When she stated to the machinists that they should take over the factory because they owned the machines, the plant, and the work force, and the management does nothing to make the whole enterprise tick, she is displaying her vast ignorance of capitalism, and manufacturing in America—and advocating outright theft of capital investment.
What the management does at Boeing is secure the contracts for the workers. They attend the trade shows which sell the airplanes; they engineer the planes, and the set up the supply chain which delivers all the parts for assembly. Boeing invests in the capital equipment and takes all the risks in anticipation of a profit. If there is no profit, there is no reason to fly all over the world making deals to sell airplanes, there is no reason to struggle with FFA regulations, or the threat of law suits if something goes wrong with one of their products. Without profit, there is no reason to perform any level of activity that promotes the growth of the company. Without the management, the machinists would show up at Boeing every day to work and would stand at their machines waiting for someone to drop off a part for them to process. But nothing would come and the machinists would all stand around waiting for something to happen. After a short time, the business would die, and the plant would be shut down because nobody sold anything, nobody designed anything, and nobody would deliver anything because all those things are done by management. Kshama Sawant believes that the body of Boeing can exist without the head of management to direct it—and it never works. Never. Workers never become the head in labor unions. Their socialist culture prevents it—so nobody ever picks up the baton and does the work of management on behalf of a labor union. So they always fail without management to guide them. The only unions that succeed under this arrangement are public sector unions who steal tax money to exist given to them by politicians too weak to question the socialism involved.
Boeing has a right and obligation to protect its shareholders and move its business if shown that they can no longer be productive, and having a lecherous workforce of union staff that won’t negotiate on reduced pensions to become more economically viable is a good indication that it’s time to move away from communities like Settle where the people elected a socialist like Sawant to offices of power. Such an election is reckless and shows that the left leaning liberals of Washington State haven’t a clue as to where their economic power comes from. Their ignorance is hurting Boeing as a company of great American significance with imposing anti-capitalist mechanisms that destroy production.
I have yet to see a unionized work force that produces effectively without management. If left to the workers, part rate drops per hour of production, quality drops dramatically, delivery times are nonexistent, attendance is horrendous, and nothing works. If the workers of Boeing in Washington took over the machining facilities and the management of Boeing moved to South Carolina or even Texas where right-to-work exists, Boeing could buy new plants, new machines, and pay for new employees. But the employees in the current machining facility would have their machines but a building empty of product because nobody in management would bring it to their door.
It is astonishing that someone like Kshama Sawant could have a PHD from an American college and be a socialist—believing the things she does. What she believes creates poverty similar to where she came from in India where the union stewards become the caste system she ran from, and politicians become the kings. She simply brought India to America and the end result is destroyed jobs, economic misery, and the migration of America into a third world country. Nobody should leave an American school or a college with the idiotic notion that socialism is anything but destructive, and a failed philosophy that has no place in any company in The United States, especially the aviation industry.
Kshama Sawant is not alone—there are millions just like her, just savvier at hiding their real beliefs from the public. Anyone who believes that it is greed that drives business, or uses terminology like—the “people should unite” are socialists and they need to be dealt with accordingly. There are no labor unions in America who do not support that basic premise—and that includes police, fire, and teacher unions. They are all founded on concepts of socialism which is blatantly exhibited by Kshama Sawant—ignorance into the way the world really works with an assumption that profit is evil. It is the unionized workers that are all about economic terrorism with strikes, wage demands, and stifled productivity. The radicals are the advocates of socialism who pretend to be capitalists. At least Kshama Sawant says what she is. Most of them don’t.
Rich Hoffman
November 24, 2013
Replacing John Boehner: Meet J.D. Winteregg
For me the situation is clear, I’ll support J.D. Winteregg to run against John Boehner in the primary coming up as opposed to the other challenger who spoke at the West Chester Tea Party in a short introduction and debate against my neighbor Eric Gurr—a very nice guy, smart man, but too much of a political insider. J.D. has a new penny feel about him, and after hearing him speak, I believe he is incorruptible. I’ve known a few people over the years that can walk through the valley of sin without falling to temptation, and Eric has that presence about him. It will take that kind of person to knock off Boehner, and do what is required in Washington D.C. in the seat that Boehner vacates. But don’t just take my word for it, watch the debate for yourself—where both J.D. Winteregg and Eric Gurr introduce their basic platforms and do a bit of Q & A at the end through debate fashion. Both guys did a pretty good job at this early stage. Neither are slick politicians—but that’s a good thing when it is considered that the task at hand is to knock off the Speaker of the House—the third most powerful job in the entire world.
John Boehner has been in Congress representing the 8th District since 1990. He’s been in that position my children’s entire life, and they are now both married and having kids of their own. He’s been in Washington too long. I know he’s a nice guy, but I’m sure the same could be said of Obama privately. Boehner is just bad for the job. It became clear to me that Boehner had fallen in love with Washington D.C. when he was caught on a hot mike talking to Joe Biden about golf before the President addressed the nation with a yearly speech. Obama obviously has intentions to grossly expand government which is a real and serious threat to everyone’s livelihoods who actually work at real jobs—and hob knobbing with the powerful elite while they do it is just neglectful. It has become obvious that Obama and John Boehner are not that far apart on many issues. Boehner plays the Republican act for the cameras, and fundraising speeches, but it is obvious he doesn’t believe what he says because he doesn’t act on his promises—such as someone’s going to “jail over the IRS.” Boehner like Obama just delivers lines of dialogue and seems to believe in nothing.
When a politician like John Boehner “compromises” he’s done, not because compromise is a dirty word, but because the implication of that task states clearly that a person is willing to yield their values for the collective good of democracy. The trouble with that is the other side does not function from a value system, so compromise to them costs nothing—because they have nothing to yield. The compromise exclusively comes from those who do have value—people like Boehner—and he has for over twenty years compromised, and compromised, and compromised until he has allowed the Republican right to be pulled so far to the political left that he could likely hold a job right now in the Clinton White House of the 1990s.
Boehner plays too many Washington games, and he loses most of them. Whether it’s the government shut down, the debt ceiling, Health Care which was rammed through Congress on his watch, his failure to go after Obama on several potentially impeachable offenses—Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, the political appointments, Boehner has shown that he’s comfortable in Washington. He likes it and for a representative from Ohio, he is not representing it in the Belt Way—giving politicians like Obama leverage in all negotiations. It is obvious that in the poker games of Washington, John doesn’t know what he’s doing, or what his opponents are doing to him. Boehner is continuously out-maneuvered by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for God’s sake—and those people are complete idiots. I am convinced that Boehner was elected Speaker of the House not for his skill as a Speaker, but for his naive complacency—his aloofness toward the crimes going on in the House under his nose which is enriching its members. Boehner is Speaker of the House to keep the status quo functioning with excuses and promises while the trio of Reid, Pelosi, and Obama run him down over and over like Enos on the old television show, The Dukes of Hazzard.
On a rainy January in 2011 I went down to John’s office during lunch to speak to his “people,” the same guys who were in the audience scouting the competition trying to knock off their boss in the video above. I wanted to give Boehner a formal letter, and actually hoped to catch him in town, as I knew he was back home at the time. When I got to the office, they hadn’t seen Boehner even though he lives right down the road—and that little aspect of Boehner’s management style spoke volumes about the current Speaker of the House—he’s out of touch. Boehner after 20 years in Congress has been out-witted one too many times and the way he attempts to overcome his intellectual naiveté is to play golf with his enemies and compromise. When Boehner compromises with Obama it is always the GOP which gives up something because Obama is a classic thief—a looter who gains everything he has in life by taking from others. Obama never gives up anything because he never earned anything. John Boehner on the other hand has always done for himself—but he gives Obama equal value at the bargaining table with a compromise. It’s like going to a garage sale and buying a new television in exchange for a pack of stolen laundry plucked off a neighbor’s cloths line. Boehner has the television; Obama has the bag of laundry. Boehner gives Obama the television, and Boehner gets a bag of laundry that the owner eventually comes looking for and thinks that it was Boehner who stole it in the first place, because it’s in his hands. Obama goes home and watches football on the television while Boehner defends himself in court for stealing laundry from people’s back yards. That is what Democrats call “compromise.”
The Speaker of the House should know how to defend himself from those types of political games, but Boehner clearly doesn’t. Like Enos in The Dukes of Hazzard, John Boehner is a good man pushed around constantly by the Boss Hoggs of Capital Hill, and he falls for just about every scheme imaginable. He has been kept as Speaker because the thieves, looters and barons know that they can continue their crimes against the tax payer so long as John Boehner is in charge—and that is just an insult to the people of the 8th District, and to himself. It is painful to watch Boehner struggle through all the various controversies that the Obama administration has served up to him, and he misses again and again the opportunity to deliver a spike. It’s like watching a child in tee-ball who can’t swing a bat and hit the ball set up on a tee. It’s just pathetic.
So it’s time for Boehner to go and send a message to Washington that an established (powerful) Republican can be knocked out of his seat by someone new—someone like J.D. Winteregg. If the Republicans fail to gain seats in the House after the Obamacare debacle, then they are complete idiots anyway—and hopeless beyond repair. Obamacare is not just a ball placed on a tee for the GOP to hit, but it’s already been knocked out into the field for them. All they have to do is run the bases. So losing Boehner in the primary is of little consequence to the GOP. We can afford it as an investment into a new kind of government where the Speaker is actually in his office when he’s in town, and doesn’t think first of playing golf while the other side is pulling his underwear up over his head like a Three Stooges skit. It’s time for someone else to take John’s seat, and for me it would be J.D. Winteregg.
Rich Hoffman
November 23, 2013
Chris Lee’s Millennium Falcon: Journey to the Corporate Sector
It is such a pleasure in a world that has seemingly gone mad politically, philosophically, and economically to see the glorious gumption of Chris Lee and his entourage of dedicated Millennium Falcon builders. I have covered the exploits of Full Scale Falcon.com before—but that was upon the original announcement that Chris and company had dedicated themselves to building a full sized Millennium Falcon on an 80 acre lot outside of Nashville, Tennessee. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. For me and millions of other Star Wars fans the Millennium Falcon represents rebellion, freedom, and hope. It is impossible to step into my home and not see something relevant to Star Wars—but in my bedroom there are Millennium Falcons everywhere. For me it represents more than just a nice plot point from a cool movie—the roots of the Falcon represent far more—and those roots are obviously driving Chris and many others to spend their own time, money, and effort on making a real Falcon that people can see and touch—and walk through. The Millennium Falcon is about more than just escapist fantasy—I would argue it is the direct result of laissez-faire capitalism, and people deep down inside know it—which is why they love the iconic space ship. It was because of laissez-faire capitalism that The Millennium Falcon was able to nearly single-handedly beat a galactic empire with speedy modifications, powerful weapons and raw guts born out of a Star Wars invention called the Corporate Sector.
When I was in the fifth grade my mother used to put together a gift bag of goodies to play with and read while taking long vacations that required many hours in the car. That year my family went to Myrtle Beach and inside my gift bag was a novel just published by Del Rey called Han Solo at Star’s End. It was the first book published after the 1977 release of the first Star Wars film and it featured my favorite character and I couldn’t wait to read it. My mom purposely kept the book on top of the refrigerator out of my reach but positioned it so that I could see it. I was salivating for weeks to read it. I was looking forward to our family vacation not for the opportunity to go to the beach, but to read that book.
Finally on a hot summer morning after a devastating thunderstorm that nearly delayed our trip, we left. The moment we were on I-75 south, my mother gave me the carefully constructed gift bag with all the goodies in it to keep me occupied for the long drive. There were lots of neat things in the bag, but only one thing I wanted and the moment I put my fingers on it, I was in love for life. I devoured Han Solo at Star’s End. I read the book all the way to Myrtle Beach, at every restaurant we stopped at, on the beach, at the hotel room, everywhere that I could hold a book. When I finished I read it again, then again, then again. I lost count of how many times I read that book. I was in love with the Millennium Falcon not because of the movie—which was great, but for deeper reason that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was the Corporate Sector and specifically a guy named Doc Vandangante who could have only been employed by such an experiment of laissez-faire capitalism that had sent my mind ablaze for some unknown reason.
On my family’s Myrtle Beach vacation I read in Han Solo at Star’s End that while in the Corporate Sector, the Falcon was damaged after Solo and Chewbacca attempted smuggling weapons to insurgents on Duroon. They did collect payment from the insurgents and went to pay off Ploovo Two-For-One, but in a rather creative manner. Given the prickly relationship and even outright disgust they had for each other, Han bought a foul, irritable, putrid dinko, attached the payment to it, and unleashed it on the unfortunate employer. Although Corporate Sector Security arrived at the establishment where they were, Han and Chewbacca escaped their grasp relatively unscathed. Payment completed, they went off to find the outlaw tech “Doc” Vandangante‘s hideout, only to discover he had been taken to the Corporate Sector Authority prison at Stars’ End. Doc’s daughter Jessa offered upgrades and repairs to Han’s ship, and a Corporate Sector waiver, in exchange for Han helping rescue Doc and the other prisoners. Before Han could take off, the outlaw techs were attacked by IRD-A Fighters. Piloting a Z-95 Headhunter, Han led the other techs and Jessa in defense of the base. Despite heavy losses, they were successful. To complete their rescue mission for Jessa, Solo and Chewbacca were given two droids, Bollux and Blue Max, and went to the agriworld Orron III to meet up with a group led by Rekkon planning the prison rescue. Though Solo was initially only interested in getting the repairs for his ship, his motives became personal when Chewbacca was captured. After dealing with a traitor in the group, Solo and the others arrived at Stars’ End. In order to gain entry, Han, Atuarre, Pakka, Bollux and Blue Max posed as a troupe of entertainers. The rescue proved successful; freeing Chewbacca, Doc, and the other prisoners and destroying the Stars’ End in the process. After the Falcon was repaired, Solo and Chewbacca left the Corporate Sector for a time, taking Bollux and Blue Max with them in future books…….all of which I read with the same enthusiasm.[18]
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Han_Solo
The Corporate Sector was formed in 490 BBY[9] to free the Republic lawmakers and the Corporate moneymakers from their differences, after being exiled from the Inner Rim to the Tingel Arm. The Corporate Sector originally had a few hundred systems all devoid of intelligent life. Its creation came in the aftermath of the disastrous experiment with corporate control in the Outer Expansion Zone. The new experiment was tried under more careful supervision, the Republic sent the equivalent of a full subsector’s worth of ships to protect the rights of the workers in the sector and to ensure the companies preserved the basic integrity of the environment on the planets in the sector. The corporations were allowed to operate in the sector and could purchase entire regions of space, but were supervised by the Galactic Republic. A general tax was paid directly to the Republic government which enabled the companies to avoid the morass of sector, system, planetary and local taxes found on most worlds in the Republic. The Corporate Sector thrived because of deregulation and low taxes.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Corporate_Sector
Doc was born on Coruscant to Carmilla Vandangante, a corporate viceprex and widow who doted on her only son. He rebelled against his life of luxury and privilege at the age of seven, reprogramming his droid nanny to discard such unpalatable foods as kibla greens, flangth, and stewed gwouch into a living room vase. This demonstrated his technical gifts to his tutors, who soon tailored their lessons to these skills.[1]
Upon graduation, Doc accepted a position at Alkherrodyne Propulsions as design systems team leader. He soon became disenchanted with the corporation’s shoddy workmanship covered with flashy marketing, but swallowed his pride and remained with the company. However, when the Azaria 66 began exploding in minor accidents, Alkherrodyne’s slicers framed Doc. The countless lawsuits wiped out the multi-billion credit Vandangante fortune, and left the name slandered.[1]
Doc became a drifter, eventually making his way into the Corporate Sector, where he met an outlaw tech by the name of Shardra. They immediately fell in love, and when introduced to her profession, Doc found his calling, repairing smuggling ships and souping them up to be some of the fastest in the Corporate Sector. Shardra bore the couple a daughter, Jessa Vandangante, but soon died in an unfortunate fuel dump explosion. Doc found raising a daughter to be a difficult task, especially as the free-spirited woman grew older and started catching the eye of younger smugglers like Han Solo.[1]
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Klaus_Vandangante
The Millennium Falcon was a direct result of very creative free enterprise by a number of previous owners but culminating in the exploits of Han Solo who ran into Doc Vandagante. In a very large galaxy of ideals, some parts of it ruled by peace-loving pacifists, some ruled by ruthless crime lords, some ruled by sinister agents of tyranny, some just trying to preserve their heritage among the intermingling of many races and species—it was the Corporate Sector that made The Millennium Falcon such a special starship. Much like today’s world in real life, government and business could not get along—so government gave business free rein on the outer edge of the galaxy away from their control in exchange for the benefits. The equivalent in the real world might be the Caribbean, Las Vegas, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Hong Kong, or even Disney World where politics leaves the areas alone with their overly intrusive rules and regulations. The direct benefit is the vibrant economic activity of creative minds such as the fictional Doc Vandagante. My question as a young fifth grader on Myrtle Beach was why wasn’t the rest of the galaxy the way the Corporate Sector was? Why would the government within the core worlds want the benefits of the Corporate Sector not on the outer rim of the galaxy, but within the core near the capital planets? Well, the sad answer was power.
Star Wars is of course a fictional story, but it has so many references to our current life that the mythology accurately reflects many competing ideals that are in actual conflict. The concepts introduced through the story are familiar to us all. The Imperials love statism, the Rebels love freedom, and then there are those who might otherwise find sanction in the Corporate Sector with all the good and bad that comes with it. Some of the planets in the Corporate Sector are ravaged with pollution, and corrupt board of directors just out trying to make money at the expense of others. It’s not all good in the Corporate Sector—it’s not safe—fair, or even remotely nice. But, the Corporate Sector was responsible for much of the technological innovation that the rest of the galaxy enjoyed and there is a philosophical argument there worth noting.
The Millennium Falcon is a direct product of the laissez-faire capitalism of the Star Wars universe. When I returned back to the real world after reading Han Solo at Star’s End it was clear that my public school was intent to teach the politics of the core worlds, what we might call in the real world—socialism. The public schools were intent to preach the merits of statism—rules and regulations, federal control of everything. Not me. I wanted a Millennium Falcon—I wanted something like it in my lifetime, and it quickly became clear to me that the kind of education that the public schools were offering would not take the world where I wanted to go. When John F Kennedy dared America to go to the moon, he tossed at NASA a bit of laissez-faire capitalism to make it happen—and beat the Russians to space. Stanley Kubrick watched this progress and built is movie 2001: A Space Odyssey around that type of progress. But once the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989, America took its foot off the gas and started over regulating everything once again to give politicians something to do—and that space race progress came to a halt. Now there has been over 20 years of blatant and gradually increasing socialism coming out of WashingtonD.C. because that’s what everyone was taught in their public schools, and there are no real plans for space under the Obama administration going forward. They are instead focused on solar panels, street cars, public transit, and a communist care health system.
NASA if turned loose with laissez-faire capitalism could likely build a real functional Millennium Falcon within a decade. The technology is close enough that at least a vessel that could take off and fly into space with artificial gravity, ion propulsion, life support and other forms of sustainability could be achieved quickly if the real life Doc Vandagantes were turned loose of government regulation. I know a few of them, I know people who have invented flying cars that could take off from one driveway and land in another half a world away, but has no real interest from large aerospace companies facing gigantic liability concerns, and mountains of paperwork in compliance to purchase—and advance. I know of people who have cured most cancers, but the FDA has tried to throw them in jail to keep the technology off the market so pharmaceutical companies can continue keeping people sick and addicted to their products. I know of scientists who have started the process of regenerative growth—who can re-grow fingers lost, or legs amputated. They are solving the problem of aging and whether or not human beings actually have to die. They are a threat to the companies who make prosthetic limbs, and ADA legislation that wants more ramps for wheel chairs, elevators for the disabled, and generally more handicapped people to use for political advancement in the here and now. Those types of people will gladly sacrifice the opportunities of tomorrow for power today.
Statists inside the beltway of Washington D.C. are the first to say that if people never got sick, never died, and had unlimited freedom of transportation, then the world would become over polluted, over populated, and a menace to itself. They are still thinking small, because they obviously never read anything like Han Solo at Star’s End as kids—an act I’m sure Chris Lee shares with me. People like Chris and I ask ourselves why can’t I have my own Millennium Falcon to take off and go to work in orbit around earth where all the pollution and byproduct of production could be dumped into space preserving planet earth forever. When work was completed at the end of the day, we would just fly home and land in our back yards with our Millennium Falcons. Why can’t we have it–because we live on earth with restrictive governments that hate laissez-faire capitalism?
I’ve read many of the European classics and compared to Star Wars, they are boring. I love Shakespeare, but I would take any Star Wars book over William Shakespeare any day of the week. Shakespeare was a better writer than Brian Daley who wrote Han Solo at Star’s End without question. But Daley is much more positive as a thinker than Shakespeare, and that optimism about what’s possible is what Star Wars is all about. Yet much of the modern statism that is infecting the world is because of European culture, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, Dante’s Inferno, or the master himself James Joyce of Finnegan’s Wake fame, which I have read and understand. Give me Star Wars over Finnegan’s Wake and give me the Millennium Falcon over a fu**ing street car. Give me a manufacturing plant floating around earth dumping its garbage into space or on the surface of the moon as opposed to the socialism of Brazil where everyone lives in a card board hut. Give me a Corporate Sector that can build a Millennium Falcon in America so that I can have one as opposed to the dying towns of Detroit choking on socialism and feel-good progressivism.
What Chris Lee is attempting to do is no different from what Doc Vandagantes did in the book Han Solo at Star’s End for The Millennium Falcon. Chris isn’t working for NASA, or some other group building Falcons for the general population. Government will not get behind such an effort, so Chris is doing it on his own. I was a bit skeptical at first even though I wanted to see the results. But after Chris showed off the latest cockpit construction after many months of meticulous effort, I can see clearly that he will be successful so long as he can continue to fund the project. It is for that reason that I am starting an icon on my side bar here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom encouraging my readers here to help Chris with his project. I think it’s important. Is it as important as sex trafficking in the world, or the sad state of current politics———-no, but yes. Yes because Chris’s Millennium Falcon project is about the most important ingredient to human society—imagination—and the gumption to make things happen. Chris wants like I do to walk inside a real life Millennium Falcon—and he’s making it happen on his dime, with his time, and his effort. And now that I’ve seen it, I can’t help but wonder what our world would be like if government simply got behind people like Chris and allowed them to function in a Corporate Sector of America where inventions like the Falcon could flourish, instead of trying to heard people into cities through progressive politics and force them onto government sponsored mass transit. The Millennium Falcon is a larger symbol than that—it is the result of laissez-faire capitalism and a hope for mankind that resides in the spirit of ideals and innovation—and a lot of perspiration.
That old Han Solo at Star’s End novel still sits near my reading chair. It’s now torn, and very worn out from years of handling—but it still evokes in me boundless imagination opportunities and optimism. Many people look at what Chris is doing in Nashville and read what I have said here and think that we are grown up kids who love the escapism of cinema, or fantasy which has a grain of truth to it. But what do we want to escape from—and to what. Speaking for myself, I wish to escape from the clutches of those with undeveloped imaginations—people who avoid thinking rather than thriving from it. For me, a personal Millennium Falcon would allow me to leave those sluggish minds behind in a flight for the stars and the endless possibilities available outside of the laws comb-over politicians have constructed just to increase their power base. My wife has read Han Solo at Star’s End—in fact she’s read every Star Wars book ever written up to this point which is in the hundreds—and she understands why there are Millennium Falcon’s all over our bedroom. Many don’t because they failed to let novels like Han Solo at Star’s End capture their imaginations at a young age, or failed to enjoy a film like Star Wars for whatever reason. They lack the mechanism to enjoy those kinds of things and it is they who are weights on minds like mine. I want to escape from their limitations, their restrictions, and their lives stuck in quicksand of self-construction. The Millennium Falcon to me is freedom from all that, and a symbol against restriction because The Falcon is a pirate vessel built by illegal components that’s faster than anything regulations in the Republic or Empire would allow. And that’s why I love it, and why people like Chris are dedicating their lives to see a real life Millennium Falcon—even if they have to build the damn thing themselves. I sleep better at night knowing that there are people like Chris and his friends out there—beyond the reaches of those who use rules and regulations to mask the lack of imagination that plagues their thoughts like a cancer—and the democracies of tyranny that they create with good intentions imposed from faulty thinking. The Millennium Falcon is an escape from those who don’t understand and a celebration by those who do.
Rich Hoffman
November 22, 2013
Hoffman Vs. Dixon: David “Kern” and a Goliath “Commissioner”
There is a good reason that I stand with Roger Reynolds and David Kern over the recent controversy surrounding Butler County Commissioner, Don Dixon. Before I tell this story remember that I’d rather deal with Republicans who are fighting each other over what’s right than a bunch of collectivist Democrats. But then again, Don Dixon was a Democrat all through the 80′s and 90′s and only decided to become a Republican in the year 2000, when it was obvious that conservative politics ruled Butler County. When politicians use their public office in an abusive way—to obtain benefits for their friends, family, and political allies, right is right—and its not always easy to tell who is telling the truth, or even what “right” is. In the recent case of Don Dixon, he obviously gave his son Brent benefits from his political holdings over the years—to the direct benefit of his family. Don’s angry because Kern and Reynolds called him out on it—finally. Here is the story from the newspaper.
Two board of election employees – including the son of a county commissioner – resigned in the wake of allegations that they were receiving full-time benefits for working part-time jobs.
The county made about $200,000 contributions toward their medical and dental insurance and also paid toward their pensions.
Republican Brent Dixon, 44, and Democrat Garry Hicks, 61, resigned this month after Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser became involved and issued a “cease and desist” letter to the board of elections.
Brent Dixon was hired 22 years ago during the tenure of retired elections director Betty McGary, who has had a long-time relationship with Don Dixon. McGary quit in 2011 after 33 years.
“That’s the most lowdown sleazy, nasty comment I’ve ever heard. If you want to talk about me and you want to talk about my political history that’s one thing. Stay out of my life, out of my personal life. Roger Reynolds doesn’t have a millionth of the integrity she’s got,” he said. “I don’t pick on his wife.”
He threatened to sue Reynolds and Kern.
Don Dixon, who has led a crackdown on county spending since the economic downturn, was outraged that Reynolds had dragged McGary into the flap. He referred to McGary as his wife. He said the allegations were politically motivated.
Don Dixon said county commissioners have no control over the board of elections even though county commissioners approve the board’s annual budget.
Reynolds said Butler County contributed more than $156,000 towards Brent Dixon’s medical insurance over the years. Hicks was hired in 2001 and the county contributed about $35,000 toward his medical insurance premiums. Hicks recently was only taking the county’s dental insurance. Reynolds did not have figures for how much the county contributed toward their pensions.
With changes in the state pension effective Jan. 1, 2014, the 14 percent raises put Dixon’s and Hicks’ monthly wages over the $600 benchmark that enabled them to continue to earn a full month of credit for pension benefits. Before the changes, employees had to earn a minimum monthly salary of $250 to receive one full month of pension credit.
“There’s a lot of questions related to how Betty McGary would go along with this and authorized this as a director when it directly impacted Don Dixon’s son,” Reynolds said.
http://westchesterbuzz.com/2013/11/18/commissioners-son-got-pension-benefits-for-part-time-work/
Don Dixon can cry foul all he wants, but the bottom line is that his son was given help by government through his father which is an abuse of power. It doesn’t mean that Dixon is a bad person, but has simply done what many politicians fall victim to, they abuse their power for personal benefit which ultimately cost tax payers a lot of money. When there are many tens of thousands of people like Don Dixon doing for his son Brent what he did, the cost to tax payers is catastrophically high.
I have some experience with the Dixons that is a bit of a precursor to this kind of behavior which I have never forgotten. Way back in 1979, I was in a Soup Box Derby race with Brent in the finales of the Hamilton Jaycees sponsored event held behind Fort Hamilton Hospital. Back then, the race was a big deal in the Hamilton/Fairfield area and my car The Beast, seen in the picture above dominated the event. CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW OF HOW “THE BEAST” CAME TO BE. Brent and I raced in what was one of the closest races ever done in that event. We raced three times in the finals which was a climatic centerpiece that had a good part of Hamilton on the edge of their seats. I won the first race convincingly. During the second race it was so close that nobody could agree whether or not Brent won or I did. So we raced a third time. Many believe that the results were much closer the third time than the second—but by rule, they couldn’t declare a tie, so somebody had to make a decision. After 15 minutes of grueling review, Brent was declared the winner to the roar of a cheering crowd. The Dixons were well-known around Hamilton and very politically powerful—so people knew their name. I was an unknown living on a country road in obscurity.
I wasn’t unhappy with the results. I was proud of my efforts. Brent had a slick car that many people believe was built by his father’s people. Brent had a car that was built to win. My car was one that my dad and I built-in our basement and back yard over many months. A lot of sweet and love went into my car and it showed. Brent’s looked professional, mine looked like it was made by an 11-year-old—which it was. But even so, I had won 9 out of 11 races including the final—which wasn’t bad. But my dad swore that I had won both photo finishes as he had placed himself on the sight line. He was outraged.
Naturally, I thought that my dad was just cheering for his son the way all proud parents do who believes that their children are the best at everything. Brent’s dad Don was near my father with his entourage of ass-kissers and of course Don believed that his son had won. The two dads were looking at the situation from opposing positions. I didn’t care. I was happy to have done well, but my dad was furious on the way home. The entire time we loaded my car onto the trailer and drove home he talked about Butler County politics and declared that the race was so close that politically the officials gave the win to Brent because of who his dad was. I wasn’t so sure, but what he was saying made sense.
Afterwards, the media seemed more interested in my story than Brent’s including the Journal News story seen above—because I was the underdog and as the reporter declared, people like the underdog. People liked my car, they like the David and Goliath story, they liked reading about Hoffman versus Dixon—where obviously Dixon was Goliath. As the reporter concluded his interview with me and took his pictures at a spot that is now a sports bar where my home used to be located, he winked at me and said…………”you won kid. I was there………I saw it with my own eyes. But politics is more powerful than heart. You have a lot of heart, just not enough politics.”
I watched that reporter leave and thought hard about what he said, and it likely sent me on a journey that has been over 30 years in the making. I value my heart and the products of my mind over the connections that I could make kissing ass through politics. I have avoided politics my entire life, likely because of my experiences against Brent Dixon at the Hamilton Soap Box Derby in 1979. I’ve watched Brent grow up in the shadows of his father his entire life and I would never trade positions with him. Brent has to look in the mirror every day and know that much of what he has obtained in life he gained through his father—whether it was the decision of a photo finish victory against me, or a cute little job with the Board of Elections and all the perks that came with it. If I live a hundred more years I would never wish to trade places with Brent Dixon.
When I was 11 years old and my soap box derby car was parked next to Brent’s slick black and gray professionally constructed Dixon winning machine I wouldn’t have traded him my car for his—even though they were both equally as fast. The reason is that I built mine with my dad with a lot of hard work and that made my victories that day much more cherished. Brent won in the end, but like many things in his life, he won with the help of politics, which cheapens such victories to the point where they’re worthless.
Now many years later, on the fallout of a Lakota levy election loss where the politically connected won over the rag-tag efforts of those standing against tax increases, I wouldn’t trade places with those people for the same reason that I wouldn’t trade with Brent. Dixon the son won at many things in life because politics helped him get over the top. I have watched this happen to many people, and I have fought against it as I always will. It didn’t surprise me at all to see that Brent had eventually found himself in trouble over such a thing because it wasn’t the first time. What did surprise me is that David and Roger stood up to a respected Republican Commissioner who has his roots going back decades into Butler County politics. The fact that they did speak out against Dixon speaks volumes about a wave of politics that is about to hit Butler County in the years to come—a political system that the levy supporters will not like, and the power brokers like Dixon who have spent a life-time nurturing their name so that they could help their loved ones with looted money and resources gained through government offices.
I have been in many photo finishes, and many of them were lost the same way that my rendezvous with Brent Dixon ended—with politics defeating raw heart. But………..in the end, even after all these years the results of two lives shaped by a Soup Box Derby race proved drastically different because one found their life shaped by who their dad was and the other shaped by the kind of man their dad allowed them to be. That subtle difference leads to winning a war by letting the battles go to the politically connected and otherwise manipulative causing a result that always ends with self-destruction over a span of decades. A war won is more valuable than battles shaped by political influence, not for what the spoils of victory can give to pad a bank account, but for what it brings out truly in a heart and soul. Battles are won by people like the Dixons. Wars are won by those with heart…………..and a mind that still feeds it. In confronting Dixon, Reynolds and Kern showed a lot of heart, and I admire them for it. David Kern specifically has spent a life-like the biblical David, overlooked and quietly residing in the background for the most part. Commissioner Dixon represents all the high-profile prestige of the Biblical Goliath, who expects to use his power and prestige collected over many years to crush his enemies. What happened over the board of elections scandal is that an actual David named Kern cast a single stone against Goliath, and the results were predictably epic. Because the David of Butler County—Kern and Roger Reynolds are out to win a war—as they have for years endured the battles won by Don Dixon. And if Goliath was not guilty to begin with, the single stone would have had no effect.
In the end, heart crushes politics. Sometimes it just takes decades to achieve victory. Most of the time, it takes more than a photo finish, but enough time provided for Goliath to overlook a single stone that could bring him down, and the will to cast it when the rest of the world believes it to be unwise. That is what I learned in my race with Brent Dixon in 1979 and the lives of two people who moved from there into radically different directions.
Here’s more on Don Dixon and a good indication of the deeper politics involved. CLICK HERE.
Rich Hoffman
November 21, 2013
Even Losing The Bucs Are The Best: What is really behind team sports
I’m still on the fence about professional football; my interest in it has declined greatly over the last several years because of how it facilitates collectivism, and education institutions supported by left-winged radicals. Football is a fun game that is cool, yet serves as a cover for the content being taught in these institutions, and the general collectivism exhibited by them. For instance, a graduate of Ohio State University generally says “we” when referring to the school they attended—and they do this in the same way that people say “we” when referring to their favorite sports team. “We scored a touchdown in the third quarter,” or “we lost a close game,” are just a few examples, and the behavior is learned in the education institutions. Because of its “coolness” football serves as cover for all the bad things happening in the class rooms being taught by liberal leaning educators. Society accepts the bad so that they can have the good, the entertainment of high school football under the Friday night lights, or a Saturday NCAA game between Ohio State and Michigan, or the fabulous Sunday afternoon football of the professionals—who are all the best and brightest of the college and high school players.
To compound matters, my favorite team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had a bad year—a new coach learning his way around the NFL has struggled to find his niche as he pushes out the last remnants of the Raheem Morris era—targeting specifically Josh Freeman—the starting quarterback. So there hasn’t been much to cheer for on my end, however, as I’ve stated emphatically on several occasions I would be a fan of the Buccaneers if they never won another game—because I support the ownership—not specific players and coaches. I support the culture that the Glazer family attempts to create around their Tampa football franchise, and admire the grit of their ownership.
This grit was on full display during Monday Night Football against the embittered Miami Dolphins on the night Warren Sapp’s jersey was retired at half time. Sapp was drafted by my favorite coach of all time, Sam Wyche who also drafted John Lynch and Derrick Brooks—three guys who could have only found themselves brought to the same place at the same time by someone like Wyche. Since that period of time, Tampa has tried to duplicate that chemistry again, and have relentlessly tried various options trying to find that same intense spark. They have had some small fires, but no explosions they way they did in 2002 when they finally won a Superbowl by the team that Wyche built-in 1995. Wyche was at the front of Pirsig’s train. Up until that Monday Night game the Bucs had lost all their games, most of them by narrow margins, but a loss is a loss and they were looking for their first. They played with a passion that was entertaining, and admirable and reminded me why I have always loved that team—they have a never say die attitude which I find enchanting—even when they lose. That mentality comes from the ownership.
I would rather be a fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who lose every game they play so long as they played like they did on Monday Night Football the night that Warren Sapp’s number was retired. If they lose, it’s OK with me so long as they take off their rivals head while doing it. That is why I like the Bucs—and always have. It will continue as long as the Glazers keep the spirit of that team with a philosophy which embodies that behavior.
Maybe it was something Sapp said to Greg Schiano the head coach of the Bucs prior to the game when the two had dinner, but on the following Sunday Tampa beat the crap out of the Atlanta Falcons with an effort that looked Superbowl worthy. Football is that kind of game; it’s a game of capitalism that has many socialist tendencies looting off it for their own survival. I love the capitalist elements of football, but I despise the socialism. And of all the football teams in the world the only one I actually enjoy with any sense of loyalty is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
But I never say “we” when referencing the Bucs………….it’s always “they.” They do the work, they do the hitting, they take the chances, and they win or lose the games. I do not share in that activity with them. I simply enjoy watching them try. And that is the biggest difference between how I see football, and most everyone else. For those others, they have an unhealthy relationship with football that opens their minds to statism coming through their education institutions that cause them to say “we” when dealing with the actions of others. When the word “we” comes into play, football is a bad thing—because it allows those who do not actually contribute to the victory to believe that they helped win a game—and that is socialism.
When the beer belly father cheers on the kids of a high school football team, generally such onlookers are reliving the days that have passed them by—with their advanced ages they can no longer run, jump and leap through the air—so they cheer on the young little saplings with great enthusiasm and say “we” because that is the only way they can touch such memories—is through others. When the middle-aged guy makes a bet over a college football game with his cubical all decked out with paraphernalia of his alumnus and declares that “we” will bet “you,” he is living his life through the college students of that college team with a dangerous form of collectivism. His most glorious days are now behind him and only the college football team can recapture them for him. Or when there are drunken fights at a professional game over whose team wins or loses, the participants are really fighting over the lack of control the team outcome has reminded them really occurs in their actual lives. So the reminder is something to fight over—to suppress the knowledge that all their cheering and prayers had no bearing on the outcome. I don’t watch the Tampa Bay Bucs for any of these reasons. I watch it for the warfare displayed on the game field; I watch it for the capitalist gains of better players suppressing those at a tactical disadvantage. I watch it for the hard hits, the strategy, and the passion of winning—or trying to. I watch it for the spectacle……..purely. In that regard, Tampa could lose the rest of its games for the next 10 years and I would still be a fan so long as they played the way they did on Monday Night Football on a November evening when Sapp was memorialized and the Bucs won their first game of 2013. If it were the last, it would be fine with me, because my love of them extends beyond any tentacles of collectivism, but the joy of living, bleeding, fighting and surviving to fight another day and wrestle from an opponent a hard-fought victory that is as elusive as a purple moon in a sun blazed sky.
Rich Hoffman
November 20, 2013
‘Killing Kennedy’ The Movie: Why there are conspiracy theories…………..
It took me over a week to watch Killing Kennedy, the film done by the National Geographic Channel and produced by Ridley Scott based on the best-selling novel by Bill O’Reilly. But I’m glad I finally got around to it on my DVR because I learned a few things. I am usually turned off by the whole Kennedy assassination issue because I think it took American focus off our self-reliance at a critical point in our history and I don’t like the collective sorrow that came out of the event. Also after Oliver Stone’s film from the early 90’s, there are a lot of questions surrounding Kennedy. Kennedy was a good president but he made a lot of mistakes, just like in his real life where he was too fast and loose with women, too connected to organized crime, opened the door for public sector unions to organize in government, but he did well during the Cuban Missile Crises, and setting the stage for the Space Race. So Kennedy is a mixed bag, and certainly wasn’t the worst President America ever had—but I don’t feel energized by him enough to study too deeply. When I think of Kennedy, I think of the struggle against communism and the 60s in general, and I hate both of those things, so I typically avoid references to the period except when they scream out for attention. O’Reilly’s book, and now the movie have successfully done exactly that—brought that attention to my eyes with screaming fury.
After watching Killing Kennedy it became obvious to me that many of the conspiracy theories floating around about the assassination come from the left—from sources like Oliver Stone. I did not know that Lee Harvey Oswald was such a staunch Marxist, even going to Russia to live and work for a while. Oswald had a Russian wife that he brought back to Dallas, and the source of his anger at Kennedy was in his hope that Cuba would succeed as a communist country. I have spoken often about this period in American history and how persistent communism was by many people—particularly the universities, and seeing Oswald behave the way he did toward communism was something I did not know, but fit perfectly into what I already knew about the period. The political left obviously does not want Oswald to be at fault for the Kennedy killing because they share with him a sympathy for communism, so they are looking for every other excuse they conger up away from the reality that Oswald was a communist nut case.
There were still many unanswered questions that will probably never be properly answered, as to why the FBI was so involved in Oswald’s life, and why Jack Ruby—a strip club owner was so passionate about the Kennedy killing to assassinate Oswald but O’Reilly like he does so often only looked at the evidence the way a journalist does, and those facts put on the shoulders of Lee Harvey Oswald a fanatic for Marxism who wanted the communists to succeed in Cuba and elsewhere in the world. Oswald saw Kennedy as a threat to that reality because of his stance against Cuba.
Many of these elements are present in our American life today. The political Left and Right back then had to deal with many Americans like Oswald who wanted to give communism a chance—so they bent a bit and moved to the left in both parties to take away the temptation of marching in the streets the way communists gained ground in places like Russia and China. I think this is why Kennedy gave public sector unions a chance through executive order to thrive—aside from the appeasement of the organized crime elements in his life. Kennedy’s vice-president LBJ, started the Great Society programs to take the edge off the communist threat rolling through American politics at the time. The results of this assault are seen today in the statist position of government against the people of the nation. Communism is clearly present in the modern education system, in the social programs of the 60s and all elements of progressivism. But Kennedy and LBJ thought they were fighting communism by yielding a bit to it, but what they really did was bend enough to allow elements of communism into American society to prevent more people like Lee Harvey Oswald from rising to prominence and trying to kill American politicians. Their appeasement took the edge off the hard-line communists, Marxists, and socialists—which were a much bigger problem in America than people think.
Bill O’Reilly is entirely too moderate for me, but I do watch him almost every night because he is as fair and balanced of a reporter as there is. He does let the facts speak, and it is his brand of journalism that I find attractive, and why he is one of the most successful best-selling authors in American history. I trust Bill O’Reilly, but I think he is too mild in his views. He is however a product of the 60’s, just like I am a product of the 80’s and tend to see things the way Ronald Reagan did—at least the act that came out of The White House. But the facts are the facts, and so long as facts drive the arguments, political ideology—or conviction is irrelevant—and O’Reilly can always be trusted to present the facts that are known, and reveal what they add up to.
I am glad to have seen Killing Kennedy—it was a good production that told a story of a dark period in American history and should be seen by everyone. It should be shown in schools, it should be shown by parents to their children, and grandparents to their entire clans during Thanksgiving—because it’s an important film that captures a very volatile period which we all share still. The effects of the politics of that period still resonate like ghosts haunting the house that the American Republic built—and the specters are ideologues of communism who are just as vicious and manipulative as Lee Harvey Oswald, just not as short-tempered and insecure to act on their hopes of violence. These ghosts act through legislation to achieve the same spread of Marxism to every corner of the globe—a strategy that was well beyond Oswald—a reality that only conspiracy theory can attempt to out-shine, because the Kennedy assassination was about a lot of things—but in the end it was about defending communism from an America that was the enemy of Marxist ideology—and supporters showed then as they do now, that they will do anything and harm anyone to advance their cause.
Nice job Bill “O.”
Rich Hoffman
November 19, 2013
Joe Rehm Pleads Guilty To Stealing No Lakota Signs: Why the 2013 election results should be “recalled”
Just a bit of a recap on the election results at Lakota. Although it is set for a recount, Butler County officials should scrutinize those ballots heavily, because it is now obvious that there were coordinated efforts to cheat on the election. That is not the utterances of a sore loser, it is a statement of observed fact. Just prior to the election I posted the pictures of a person who was caught stealing No Lakota Levy signs. YOU CAN SEE HIM HERE. Even though many people especially on the pro tax side believe this is a small issue, Michael Clark in The Cincinnati Enquirer made mention of it saying in his reporting that No Lakota Levy had noticeably less signs out than the pro side. Subconsciously, this lets readers know that No Lakota Levy is not making a strong political showing, which wasn’t the case. The direct result, the reason No Lakota Levy spent so much on signs, ads in the newspaper and etc., was to show voters that it was worth their time to vote against the levy. However, pro tax supporters because they didn’t have an answer to the No Lakota Levy message had to let voters know that it was pointless to resist, so they sought to sabotage the message. In a close election, such as the situation at Lakota where the public school won a tax increase by less than 1% it was voter turnout that made all the difference, and stealing the Lakota signs was a way of telling No Voters, to stay home.
Well, the guy in that picture was named Joe Rehm and on Wednesday November 13th, 2013 he was in Butler County court as part of the 10 AM cases. At 12:20 PM Judge McDonough finally called Joe up to find out how he’d plead to the sign theft of No Lakota Levy signs, since he was captured on film and published red-handed here on Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. Joe didn’t look as smug as he did in the pictures showing him clearly stealing a No Lakota Levy sign while bragging about it on the phone. My friend Graeme George spoke to the court against Joe saying to the Judge, “Because of the actions of Joe and others, so many signs of ours (No Lakota Levy) were stolen that we lost the defeat of the levy.
We lost by less than 1% of the votes cast. Sign thefts made a lot more of a difference than that.
Therefore, people like Joe cost taxpayers 14 million dollars in a tax increases every year.”
Is it an inflated claim to suggest that the sign thefts cost the election of 2013? Well, we’ll never know because the thefts were just as bad this year as they have been in the past. No Lakota Levy spent thousands of dollars on signs knowing the importance of having a political presence. No Lakota Levy didn’t have the benefit of sending home pro levy material directly to parents from the school, or using teachers to twist the mind of the children into stealing signs after football games on cold Friday nights, so No Lakota Levy had to play things straight, and expensive. In court, Joe Rehm plead guilty but declared that the sign he stole wasn’t worth more than $2, but as we know he’s not the only one. This upcoming Wednesday, one week later, three juveniles caught stealing signs in a similar way will go through the same process. They’ll have to explain why they did it, and who put them up to it. Of course they too will say that the signs were only a couple of dollars each, and they didn’t think it was a big deal.
Judge McDonough because Graeme pointed out the cost to taxpayers of the levy passage, really lambasted Joe for his wrongful actions. It was a good show, but Joe was only fined $200 plus $40, and $125 court costs, for a total of $365. The judge did not impose the 60 day jail sentence. Even less will be done to the three kids when they go through the same process. They’ll be fined, the court will make its money, the election will still be won, the signs will still have been stolen, and the tax payers will still have to pay every year $14 million in new taxes to take care of a teacher’s union contract that wants even more money than they already make. No Lakota Levy will not be reimbursed for their loses which was thousands of dollars, and they are still on the hook for paying the increases in taxes.
In previous attempts the media covered these sign thefts, which at least put the actions on the news letting people know what was happening. This time, everyone stayed off the story, the credit to that goes to Randy at Lakota. The signs simply disappeared keeping the anger from the imposition in the shadows away from unmotivated voters, which helped keep the No Vote turnout, low. The tax payers were cheated in just about every aspect with the Lakota levy, Lakota used their internal resources of the school to promote the levy sending literature directly home to parents, they funneled money through their PTA groups to outspend No Lakota Levy by nearly 5 times, and they utilized a public relations employee paid for by the tax payers to keep the media focused away from sign theft, sex scandals, school shooting threats, but on the fact that Lakota hadn’t seen a tax increase since 2005………and as Sheriff Jones stated……….”it was time,” time for a tax increase as if there was an invisible watch that says such things without any rationale behind it.
For every Joe Rehm during the election there were likely dozens if not hundreds just like him who stole one sign at a time and called a teacher on the phone hoping to get a piece of ass off them for stealing a No Lakota Levy sign as a badge of honor. Joe wasn’t even from Lakota but was “otherwise” engaged in the district. One can only imagine the phone records pulled if Judge McDonough had chosen to pursue that evidence…………what Joe was saying……….”Hey baby, I stole a No Lakota Levy sign………….are you proud of me? Will you suck my c**k now…………………..please……………..I’m a nice progressive beta man who thinks you work hard 7.5 hours a day. Hey, I cleaned the passenger seat out of my stupid little hippie car and am ready to take you to Penera Bread for some overpriced soup. With your low wages of $65K per year you teachers work so hard, and it’s just unfair. Will you suck my c**k. Hey, it’s for the kids, those poor little darlings. This No Lakota Levy sign is stupid; I’m bringing it to your house to prove I did it. You’ll be so proud of me.” Looking at Joe talking on the phone and knowing he stole our signs and plead guilty to it, that’s what I think of—and his motives behind it. It pisses me off because in the end, Lakota got their tax increase, Joe got off with a slap on the hand, just like the kids on Wednesday will, the media didn’t give a damn, and the bad guys won by exploiting children, manipulating the public, and cheating.
With all that said, I would care to guess that the teacher’s union stuffed at least 500 votes that would probably be cast away as illegal ballots if anyone cared to pursue justice in a close election. But they won’t, because ultimately most people are on the phone with some special someone who works for the Lakota school system and they are asking that someone for the same kind of favor I imagine Joe was asking for when he stole the No Lakota Levy sign. Everyone wants a favor, but nobody stands for what’s right at any level—which is why children are exploited, and tax payers are on the hook for $14 MILLION dollars a year every year likely forever.
Hope the sucking and whatever was worth it.
Rich Hoffman
November 18, 2013
Intentions of a Lakota School Board: A blood thirsty attack driving a “head shot”
I kept a lot of this quiet until after the election. I’ve spoken about the results often, and the actions on behalf of Lakota, but I have purposely left out a portion of the story….until now. This is Part II of a short two-part series. CLICK HERE to review Part One. After the election of 2011 No Lakota Levy had defeated the school at the ballot box, and there was persistent discussion that Lakota would become just like Little Miami and continue putting up election after election until they won. But I had told our group at No Lakota Levy that if Lakota chose to do that, they were truly after results that had nothing to do with rationality—and we would deal with them on that basis. I also told them that if Lakota tried for a fourth attempt in 2012, that they’d have to find someone else to be the spokesman, because I had a book coming out called Tail of the Dragon which had nothing to do with education and I didn’t want to fight a school levy while promoting the book.
As recently as the last school board meeting of 2011 Linda O’Conner reached out to my wife and me in the parking lot of the administration building off Princeton Road to wish us a Merry Christmas and to let us know that there were no hard feelings. I told her that I left the meeting early because they were boring me to death—but that it was a Christmas present of sorts, I was going to spare them having to listen to me speak publicly. I didn’t want to rub their nose in the No Lakota victory, but I did expect them to listen to what over 18,000 voters had said—and at least propose a salary reduction to the teacher’s union for the sake of the community. She smiled and said that she’d present it to the board, and we parted for the last time on civil terms. Because immediately after that, in the winter of 2012, Superintendent Mantia showed that she was going to play the radical progressive, just like President Obama, and cut away all the aspects of the public school that people actually valued—not out of fiscal concern, but with the intention of extortion. In the coming months, Lakota did nothing upon the recommendations proposed by No Lakota Levy—the victor in the last election by a sizable majority—much greater than in the last election where Lakota won by less than 1%.
This presented a problem for me. 700 WLW approached me about being the education pundit, sort of what Mike Allen is currently regarding legal issues. The popular radio station wanted me to be The Big One’s education specialists. This sounded good, but at the time my publisher was having multiple fits about my controversial stance against public education. My novel, Tail of the Dragon was set to be released during the fall of that year and all the media contacts I had from years of building relationships suddenly saw me as the face of the anti tax movement in Lakota.
I offered myself as the face because I’m in a unique position to carry the title. To me it was a job that needed to be done, and nobody else wanted to do it, and the controversy actually helped some of my side projects so I took on that role from 2009 to 2012. However, I needed separation from that role prior to the release of my novel because I was too known as an education reformer, and my book was about a car chase which was intended to appeal to a NASCAR audience. Lakota, was proposing another levy attempt right in the middle of my book’s release—and that wasn’t going to work for me.
So I had to get No Lakota Levy self sufficient—where it could act without me, I had to separate myself from the education stuff, and I needed to strike at the heart of the tax levy push and show people what was really going on at Lakota—and stop dancing around the edge of the bowl. It was time to jump into the middle and show what was hidden there. When I talk about this period being a trap set by me for the Lakota school board to jump at, this is what I meant. Once Doc Thompson was fired at 700 WLW there was awkwardness that persisted in the wake of his departure. WLW had thrown him under the bus while he was on his honeymoon so they could make good with Eddie Fingers and I couldn’t remain a friend to Doc and resume my relationship with WLW—so a lot of things were lining up in a bad way. This is the primary reason I didn’t do the requested interview that Russ Jackson tried to set up with Eddie, Tracy and me on March 15th, I felt it was because of Eddie that Doc lost his job, and I couldn’t betray Doc. This made Jackson mad, and things degenerated from there.
In early January 2012 I knew I had to break things loose the best way possible. I began turning up the rhetoric against Lakota letting my true feelings about them be known because they were obviously going for another tax increase in spite of the election results—and it pissed me off in a big way. When I learned that the Community Foundation refused to work with No Lakota Levy after I set up a deal with The Enquirer to give them a story exclusive on a check-mate story, it enraged me because not only was the donation of money that No Lakota Levy was proposing to kids who couldn’t afford the sports fees a good thing to do, but it was strategically powerful forcing Lakota to reveal what they were really about as an organization. When the Community Foundation backed out, No Lakota Levy had to start their own charity group called Yes To Lakota Kids which delayed our announcement by several key weeks. I had been targeting the middle of February and was working with Michael Clark to get the story out, but when the Community Foundation pulled out of the deal—which they had been entertaining up to that point, it sucked the life out of the story, which seemed all too coordinated.
After the election instead of working with No Lakota Levy, Lakota went on the offensive, members of the union began going around town attempting to dismantle my name and it was around the middle of February when learned about it. Doc Thompson had also just been fired from 700 WLW which left me in a strange place with them. And my publisher was very concerned about my political beliefs and questioning whether I would be dragged into another levy fight right in the middle of the novel’s release. So I wrote my article about the Latte sipping prostitutes. I wanted to empower No Lakota Levy to proceed without me while I released my novel, and I wanted to see what Lakota would do with it and see how things progressed. Even though I spoke about “women” in general my comments were directed at a few major tax advocates and they knew who they were. I knew things about their home life, and pointed my comments in that direction. After all, if they were going to smear my name, I had the right to do the same to them. They were the primaries behind the mudslinging instead of taking the olive branch that Linda proposed at Christmas time. They chose that course of action.
This led to the events discussed in Part One. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. What I put up on my articles I certainly stood behind, otherwise I wouldn’t have written them. I wanted Lakota to take a shot at me in a literal way so I could flush out the architects that were smearing me behind the scenes and I needed the names of the perpetrators. Julie Shafer who debated me on 700 WLW wanted to be the hero of the school board and eliminate the biggest resistance to the board’s tax increases. She worked with Superintendent Mantia to eliminate me from the scene. They didn’t know the things I just revealed about my novel, or my desire to see No Lakota Levy develop a new spokesman freeing me of the job, at least for the fourth levy attempt. This is the first time I’ve discussed these things publically—so they wouldn’t have known. They instead used my statements in the worst way possible. They knew who I meant specifically, yet chose to use the collective tendency of women to rally their base—another progressive trick, and they hit as hard as the possibly could.
Their actions were of the type that I intellectually anticipated they’d take. The same thing basically happened to Arnie Engle over in Fairfield, the levy supporters kept poking and poking and poking until Arnie snapped, and then they prosecuted him to the furthest extent of the law. The courts forced Arnie into probation and anger management classes to “deal” with his temper. As soon as they thought they had Arnie out-of-the-way, Fairfield tried for another school levy, which thankfully in 2013, lost. The public knows the games that are going on. However, conceiving such a ploy and feeling the wrath of it are different things, and it did surprise me how ruthless Lakota’s levy supporters truly were as human beings. What they did and how they did it showed me that they didn’t care what the results were to me personally, they simply wanted me out of their way politically. If I were the kind of person who had a traditional job, what do they think would have happened to me if I worked for a woman who day when every radio station in town was calling me a sexist, even the FM stations–literally? What about the effect on my wife and daughters or my mother—sister and other family members? What Lakota through their school board orchestrated, coming directly from Julie Shafer and Karen Mantia was the kind of thing that could have ended careers, marriages, or even residence. Several women from Julie’s circle of friends wrote me directly and actually stated that they were going to run me out-of-town, the fires of fury coming directly from the Lakota school board. And they felt entitled to do it—that is what my thousands of dollars spent every year on the stupid Lakota school system buys me—those kinds of people representing that kind of institution.
When I say it was a trap, I suspected it would happen in the way that it did and I had braced myself for it. I knew that Michael Clark was playing both sides against each other, and that he was telling the school board that Rich Hoffman had big plans against Lakota, referring to the exclusive story about Yes to Lakota Kids. This looked to have a lot to do with why the Community Foundation backed out in the middle of the announcement postponing the endeavor. And I knew that Julie, Mantia, and Powell would look for ways to come after me, and instead of them doing it in the shadows, I wanted to get it out in the daylight for all to see. They bit, and showed what they were all about, and people noticed. Shortly after the debacle of March 15th Lakota through my friends at No Lakota Levy asked for a cease-fire because things had not gone as they planned. I had rallied the anger vote and they knew there was no chance of passing a levy in 2012. In June of 2012 I did an interview with Channel 19 saying that I agreed with the school board’s decision to not pursue a tax increase. I told Cory Stark that the deal was for two years and that we’d be ready to fight again in 2013/2014. Lakota had projected surpluses so it wasn’t worth the public relations nightmare, and they needed time to lick their wounds. This suited me just fine because I was sick of Lakota and their constant attempts to raise taxes, and it allowed me to put my efforts behind the release of my book—just in time. Just prior to the Fox 19 report, I had approved the cover for my novel ahead of a release date of September, the first Tuesday after Labor Day.
However, when the novel came out, I was still known by everyone in the media as the anti-education guy—and it was hard to shake that off. Most likely, I will always be known as that—so my current thinking is that if it’s going to stick to me, then I’ll just make the best of it. My book came out and for 8 months out of the last 12 stayed sold out on Amazon.com. It did well as an initial offering and my family celebrated by going to Disney World over the summer. I needed to get away from publishing and politics for just a few weeks—which I cherished. But there have been complaints of late that Tail of the Dragon is not being carried at Amazon—it’s there, but out of print. Well, beginning at the start of October 2013 American Book Publishing closed their doors as a publisher—so they are no longer restocking my novel at Amazon. They were a small publisher and carried a lot of diverse titles, and a majority of them did not make much money. The writing for this was already on the wall in the winter of 2012 along with all the other issues mentioned, and I was concerned that they’d stay open long enough to publish my book. I think they hoped that things would turn around for them if a production house showed an interest in making my novel into a movie. But after my anti-union comments on this blog, there was a fat chance of that happening which was the real source of their frustration with my political beliefs. So they folded up, and I am searching for a new publisher to re-release Tail of the Dragon as a special edition. For American Book Publishing I had a 120,000 word manuscript that was edited down to 63,000 words, so nearly half the book was cut away. My current thoughts are to release a version of the book that was eliminated in the editing process specified by the PG rating that American Book desired. The special edition will be a rated R version of that same story, which dives even deeper into the freedom loving antics of Rick Stevens—some much harder edge concepts.
So that is the behind the scenes story of me and the Lakota levy. As a result of their approach to me and their desire to pretty much end my life with a ruthlessness that is unforgivable they have made a mortal enemy out of me—and the media personalities who played in that game with them—at this point we all know who they are. I will never forget it, I will never forgive it, and I will remind people of it the rest of my life. I will be 80 and 90 years old still talking about Julie Shafer, Joan Powell, and Karen Mantia. They had no idea what my relationship was with my family, that my wife understands me and that I am very close with my kids. But if I wasn’t, an event like what Lakota did could have ruined me—and they didn’t care. In fact, they wanted it to happen. Lakota took a head shot at me. They missed, part by design, part by luck—but it gave me a clear viewing of where they were hiding in the shadows loading their guns. Prior to that event in the Enquirer, they were shooting at me from the darkness and I could never tell where the bullets came from. After the Enquirer event, I could see the fire flash and direction of origin—and it was the Lakota school board.
So when they play innocent, like what was in Joan’s letter to Graeme, it is an act. They know the games, and where the bodies are buried. What it comes down to is money—the school board has no control over the management of their money because of the teacher’s union, and so long as they pass school levies, they can avoid the harsh reality that they are simply a body of government designed to raise taxes, because that is their only measure of balancing a budget. Instead of using their powers of manipulation against the union, they used it against me because they saw me as less of a threat than the teacher’s union, and I take that as a direct insult. So I will dedicate my time, life, and otherwise to ruining theirs. They will learn that there are greater things to fear than their teacher’s union, and if you take a head shot at me and miss, that you have earned an enemy for life.
That is the state of the union in Lakota in the wake of the 2013 Election.
Rich Hoffman
