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Ethics in Politics: Holding grudges won’t help win races, or maintain political management

Social interactions are at the heart of human discourse, and I speak from the perspective of someone who has spent a long time building relationships—not always easily, and certainly not always with universal approval. People often talk about love and unity, but I wouldn’t say I’m universally loved. In fact, I’m probably excessively hated by many, and I understand why. It’s not something I wake up hoping to change. I don’t start my day thinking, “I want people to love me today.” That’s not the goal. The goal is to make things work, and sometimes that means doing things others aren’t willing to accept. That’s when people get mad.

Recently, I’ve been vocal about supporting Ben Nguyen for the Lakota School Board. That’s stirred up some discussion. Lynda O’Connor has supported him, the former Lakota school board member who a lot of people are still very angry with.  I was at Ben’s fundraiser at Nancy Nix’s house, and Isaac Adi, another Lakota school board member was there too. I’ve seen Isaac at a few events, and we’ve had the opportunity to talk a bit. There has been tension between us, especially with the way his relationship with Darbi Boddy evolved, and how our policies got tangled up. That situation has many layers behind the scenes. If you want to talk ethics, you can justify being mad at people for what they do to each other.  I’ve been married for 37 years and have learned a lot about dealing with other people. I’ve dealt with all kinds of people—kids, grandkids, colleagues—and not everyone aligns with your goals. You have to find a way to make it work.

If you draw a hard line and say, “It’s my way or the highway,” you might be ethically correct, but you’ll lose people. And if you’re trying to influence something, losing people means losing effectiveness. Politics isn’t about making friends. When you’re trying to bring groups together, you can’t fall into the trap of friendship-based peer pressure. You have to rely on the strength of your ideas in a competitive environment. Politics isn’t a branding exercise. You can either withdraw from society or face the challenge of building teams to accomplish a task. It becomes dicey when political affiliations are based on relationships rather than ideas.

You want the best ideas to emerge. You want a competitive atmosphere where ideas collide. That’s the way you get an authentic system. You have to trust people to vote correctly, but only if you articulate your ideas properly. Sheriff Jones and I have supported other candidates within the Republican Party, and recently we have talked about the things we have in common. We want to help the Trump administration achieve its goals, even if there’s controversy—like the situation at the county jail over immigration policy. We agree on some things and disagree on others. We joke about it when we see each other to stay on ground we can work with. But ultimately, it’s not about building friendships or consensus. It’s about who can make the best argument.

Politics should be about argument, not popularity. If feelings get hurt in the process, that’s part of the election cycle. Politicians often use likability as a tool—they kiss babies, shake hands, and make themselves accessible to the public. But that’s just the first layer. You have to be confident in your ability to articulate a message. Many politicians get elected but don’t raise money or debate effectively. If you can’t engage with people who disagree with you, things fall apart. People get mad. I’ve had people mad at me just for being in a picture with Isaac. They say, “You know what he did to Darbi Boddy?” and assume that by being seen with him, I’m supporting him over her.

That kind of division doesn’t help a party win. There are all kinds of people with different thoughts. Isaac and I are not going to the movies together any time soon, but he represents a vote on the school board. He has opinions about how things should be done. I think he cares about kids and schools, even if I disagree with his methods. That’s what political faith is—believing in the process. If you base everything on popularity—“If you like me, vote my way”—you’re not making a real argument. You have to go further. If you can’t, things fall apart.

It’s essential to communicate with one another. Political candidates need to engage, not isolate. You don’t have to be best friends, but you need common ground. On immigration enforcement, for example, we can sit down and have a great discussion. It’s about positioning your statement and believing in what you’re saying. If you can’t win people over with your argument, people often fall back on popularity. That’s dangerous. You’re using your elected position to steer people through peer pressure, not persuasion.

That’s not sustainable. It’s why political parties struggle to work together. If you do that in your family, you’ll have a broken Thanksgiving dinner where people show up, but nobody likes each other. You might have money, but no real friends, they just hang around you for what they can get out of you. How you handle relationships determines your success in politics. Shared opinion has to go through the funnel of the party system. You can’t have 30% of people on one side and expect unity. You need at least 50% alignment. Even if you’re 40% apart on issues, you can still be on the same side of the line. Democrats are on the other side, and you have to be willing to work with people of different opinions.  Republicans might be at the center line of 50% and others are at 90%.  But their Democrat opposition might be at 40% on the other side of the line, and those kinds of Democrats and Republicans are closer together ideologically than the hard-core Republican at 90%.  But Republicans have to find a way to work with other Republicans if the party is going to do the work voters need. 

That doesn’t mean you abandon ethics or break promises. But you can’t get caught in “It’s either me or them.” That’s not a good place to make articulate arguments. Politics should be about fulfilling voter objectives. That’s the goal. I’ve disagreed strongly with how Isaac and Darbi’s relationship on the school board collapsed. It made me reluctant to get involved in school board issues again. But it’s not fair to someone like Ben Nguyen—a good young man who wants to make a difference. He’s trying to partner with other people to build something positive.

Looking at Isaac during Ben’s fundraiser, I  thought, “Maybe we can get another vote. Maybe we have a chance.” Not right away, but in the near future, we can build something. That’s how I’ve survived—by staying true to myself, relying on my ability to make an argument, and letting public debate shape opinion. It’s good to stay away from popularity contests. Fights don’t help anyone. They create a disjointed approach, and then Democrats win their spots because they unify—even if their ideas are really far apart.

Republicans need to figure this out, especially in school board races. When people see me in pictures with other political people they don’t like, they hold grudges. But that doesn’t solve problems. I want progress. I don’t care if people want to get a corn dog with me. What matters is whether they consider the arguments and make informed decisions. That’s what we’re trying to do—get the correct arguments into the public arena and give voters choices that reflect their lives.

Most people have excuses and fights along the way. However, it’s all aimed at uncovering the truth about what the public wants in representation. You have to trust that process. Make your case with confidence. Don’t rely on popularity. Don’t expect people to vote your way just because they like you. Win the argument. Let the best ideas rise. Let people make their own choices. That’s how things work out for the better and you get a civil society.  And much better political teamwork.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Use of Youth Violance as a Weapon: Federalizing the police in Washington D.C.

I have never been a fan of the Grand Theft Auto video games.  I think they are diabolically disgusting and a horrible influence on the kids and adults who play them.  Now I know that most people playing those games won’t hit the streets to become criminals. They play those fantasies out in the game, and don’t cross that behavior over into real life.  But there are quite a few young people who have grown up in a fatherless home, and have moms who are on government dependence, and are lacking good leadership roles, which has inspired the horrible behavior we have seen in the crime statistics, where carjackings are up.  Violence against other people is up.  Robberies are up.  All crime has been trending upward and there is a great evil at work that employs itself in Democrat politics, fueled by anti-American personalities like George Soros to destabilize culture at every opportunity and create the conditions where 14-17 year old kids wanting to join gangs apply great violence on our city streets and hide the behavior behind racism so that it cannot be criticized.  However, it’s all part of a plan to attack America from within, and it’s evident in entertainment, such as the Grand Theft Auto video games.  We should teach our youth to be the good guys, not the bad guys.  And all this came to a head when a mob of thugs, underage thugs, attacked the former member of the Trump administration, Big Balls, and they beat him to near death for defending his girlfriend during a carjacking attempt.  The violence is purposeful and meant to destabilize our culture in negative ways, and we just can’t put up with it, as a society.  So I am a big supporter of what Trump did in reaction to the Big Balls incident. 

The word has been out for a long time that kids under the age of 18 can get away with just about anything, even murder.  So the game has been to weaponize the youth in a kind of socialist destabilization way to overthrow American culture, which we have seen through the liberalized court system.  Where judges are generally lenient with youth, the more you examine the way we have built the rules of our society, the more obvious it becomes that they were created to destabilize our culture, and that is undoubtedly part of the fun at Rockstar Games when they design a new game.  The allure of being a criminal becomes ingrained in the minds of young people, making them corrosive to society as a whole.  And if anyone criticizes the game itself, the argument will then become a free speech issue, and the bad guys will laugh all the way to the bank.  And the bank is in on it, too.  Most institutions, especially the legal profession, have taken their place in working against American culture, and the youth have figured out their role in all that.  So violence is up everywhere, especially in Washington, D.C., where Big Balls was attacked, and Trump decided enough was enough.  He was already thinking about federalizing the city streets of Washington.  But now he had a good reason, so he did it, and I think it’s a fantastic idea.  We’re not talking about a condition of employment here; we are talking about correcting a culture of assault that is baked into our legal system purposefully.  And people are getting killed and beaten up to satisfy an attack against the American notion of private property itself.  So none of this is an accident.  It’s been a purposeful strategy. 

The same forces have been behind the defund the police movement.  They have made being a cop hard, so recruitment is down in cities where they don’t want the trouble of the courts if they are accused of another George Floyd case.  The reason for the police coverage of arrests gone bad by the media and the community activists has been to ultimately stop cops from arresting the youth, and to diminish recruiting numbers so that people don’t want to become cops.  Who would want the job?  So we have police shortages in most every city, we have prosecutors who will destroy the lives of cops, but let young people off the hook for literal murder, so what could go wrong?  All the same people are behind these destabilizing factors, and they want an end to America as a free country.  We already have military forces ready to cover the gaps in these police shortages.  We are paying them anyway, so we might as well put them to work and clean up our city streets, starting with Washington, D.C.  The critical thing to remember about the whole situation is that it was all purposefully created by the foundations of evil itself, including the creation of video games like Grand Theft Auto—the attack on civilized culture and the promotion of ill will among the nation’s youth.  And the assumption that cars could be stolen, businesses pillaged at will, and every kind of assault that the mind could think of, was utilized to instill fear among the voting population, afraid to call any of it bad behavior because they want to avoid being called a racist.  The mass manipulation of the public by the multilayered forces of evil has been catastrophic and purposeful. 

I have seen that crime in Washington, D.C., up close in the same general areas where Big Balls was attacked.  And it’s far worse than they talk about on TV.  I was in Washington for an event at the Smithsonian that I was invited to, and I went with my family. We arrived late at night.  My wife needed milk for my kids, so I hit the streets to look for an all-night store that might have it.  I did find the milk, but I was shocked at the level of violence that was ever-present, and the level of crime that the police were willing to put up with.  The store itself was ransacked, and this happens every night.  The owner accepted it; they told me the whole story as chaos resumed around us at the checkout counter.  The clerk was shocked that at that time of night, I was actually willing to pay for my milk, and that I didn’t just take it without paying.  Yes, I was threatened by lots of bad people, but I have my ways of dealing with those kinds of people that are long-standing and very effective.  And I made it back to our hotel room fine.  But the opportunities for violence were frequent and literally on every block between the store and the hotel room.  And the next day, most of that crime was gone, and the professionals took over the streets as if nothing had even happened.  We can’t allow that kind of crime anywhere, so it’s about time that somebody cracks down on it, and that is what Trump is doing.  And it’s a great thing.  We’ll discuss the dangers of federalizing police on city streets later.  But for now, the most dangerous thing to do is to let crime continue as it has.  Racism and youth crime, even the destruction of the American family, have all been attacks on our culture by influencers with the money to corrupt the system, and we’ve let them do it under some loose interpretation of free speech.  So we are playing a vicious game with truly evil people.  And they won’t be beaten by playing nice. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Republicans Need to Redraw the Maps: Redistrict wherever possible, do not play fair with Democrats

Don’t feel bad about winning.  Do Republicans owe it to Democrats to be fair?  Never forget, Democrats want to change the way America works, and we should have learned the hard lessons from playing fair with them in the past; we know what they do when given a chance at fairness.  We are now at a point where we control all branches of government, and there is a chance to gain many seats in the House and Senate, thereby strengthening our majorities.  And that we should do everything we can do, even if it means gaining just a single seat.  It drove me crazy in the 2024 election to see so many close races going to the Democrats, especially in California.  If we had monitored election fraud more closely, there would already be larger majorities in Congress. And yes, there was a lot of election fraud where illegal aliens and mail-in ballots pushed tight races to Democrat wins.  We were all paying attention to Trump and were happy he won.  We were delighted to get majorities in the House and Senate.  But we could have had more.  It should not be as close as it is right now.  So, we owe it to ourselves to stop the midterm trend of giving the keys back to the other party and instead gain deeper majorities. There are several ways we can do that.  And even with all that said, remember what I say all the time, because it’s true.  If you make it harder for Democrats to cheat, they can’t win elections.  Not even in places like Los Angeles and New York.  Democrats only have any trace of power through election fraud and other scandalous activities, so don’t feel bad doing what must be done to keep them from acquiring power ever, especially for these upcoming midterms. 

The biggest news of the moment is that Texas is redistricting some of its congressional seats to favor GOP candidates, which could result in an additional 3-5 seats, a very positive development.  Other states are considering the same approach, particularly in Florida and Missouri, which could result in a few additional seats.  The rule is, if you can pick up one seat, Republicans should do it.  Democrats have only been playing nice because they assume they will take back power in Congress in the midterms, and they plan to be obstructionists on every issue.  And you can bet that they plan to impeach President Trump over every radical issue, just as they did in 2019 and 2020.  The best way to prevent that is to eliminate the threat of power by not allowing them to have it.  They might be upset at gerrymandering intentions with redrawing the maps to take advantage of Democrats, but what they have planned is far, far worse, and at this stage in 2025, completely avoidable. Historically speaking, a president’s party loses 32 House seats during midterm elections because voters swing between parties in frustration with the rate of progress that comes from the White House.  Which is part of the plan in stalling everything Trump is trying to do, including appointing radical judges and even Jerome Powell keeping the Fed’s interest rates high, hoping to hurt Trump’s economy ahead of the midterm elections.  So Democrats are already doing much worse than gerrymandering congressional districts.  The key to success in holding onto Republican seats and even gaining more is for Trump to maintain an approval rating of around 63% and for Republicans to gain advantages in redistricting.  Trump’s approval rating was excellent in June as the bombing in Iran and the Fourth of July events had everyone feeling good.  Lately, with the Epstein talk and Russia causing lots of trouble, Trump is hovering at 44%.  Democrats see that as blood in the water for them to exploit, so they will continue to throw gas on any fire that might hurt Trump.

Republicans, through redistricting efforts, could pick up 5-10 extra seats, which is a significant gain right out of the gate.  There is additionally a Supreme Court case, Louisiana v. Callais, that indicates that Democrats have been accused of severe unconstitutional racial gerrymandering under the 14th and 15th Amendments.  And if this provision were found to be the case, as we should not be making up districts based on race or sex, Republicans could pick up as many as 25 seats.  This Supreme Court case is essentially judging on the premise of election fraud; the system is set up to take advantage of disadvantaged people for exploitation.  Not fairness.  This is the case regarding most things coming from Democrat politics.  The argument in the Louisiana case is expected to occur in the fall of 2025, with a decision anticipated in mid-2026.  And suppose the court rules that the Section 2 requirements for majority-minority districts are unconstitutional. In that case, states across the nation will need to redraw new maps before the 2026 midterms, potentially resulting in Republican pickups of 1-3 seats in states like Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama.  The probability of the strike down of S.B. 8 to limit Section 2’s will likely come down to a 5-4 or even 6-3 decision with Kavanaugh and Roberts siding for the change, which is now racial-based intent that supports unconstitutional gerrymandering.  So do not feel bad about pushing back. Democrats have already made a mess of things for years, and countless Democrats who should never have been in representative government have been elected to seats they never should have had.  And it’s time now to change all that.

Obviously, in the Senate, things are counted a bit differently, as two senators represent each state.  So, gaining majorities requires a different strategy. However, suppose the trend toward wins in the House breaks the cycle of expectation that currently exists, where the party in power loses power during midterm elections. In that case, there is a possibility of gaining supermajorities in 2026 through 2028.  And that is how we should all think about these things.  So drop the pretense of fairness and play these things to win.  And keep in mind the long game.  The things we do today have an enormous impact on tomorrow.  And you win tomorrow by planting the seeds for it today.  I would add that if election reform were implemented alongside these mitigating factors, Republicans could achieve supermajorities in the House and Senate, possibly even before 2028.  Numerous close Senate races fall within the margin of error that Democrats have built into their assumptions.  And if we take that away from them, they will start to drop away like flies.  They won’t be able to win future elections.  So, redraw those maps wherever possible.  Fight the Democrats in court over every issue, and don’t feel bad about wearing them out.  They intend to destroy America; we have seen their actions before.  So when you get a chance to take their head off with a boot to the neck, do it.  Don’t hold back with compassion.  Don’t get caught up in a contention of playing fair.  Play to win, and play to defeat a political enemy that seeks at every turn to manipulate things toward our self-destruction.  We don’t owe them any assumptions of fairness.  The best thing we could do as Republicans is play to win by any means possible.  And let the sums of those wins add up to supermajorities that will take our nation to a much better tomorrow because tomorrow starts today.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

We Have To Teach People Why Capitalism is Good: The Vivek Ramaswamy approach to Zohran Mamdani

I think people misread Vivek Ramaswamy’s comments about Zohran Mamdani incorrectly, for the most part.  However, when Vivek placed an ad in New York challenging the socialist candidate for mayor to a debate, it raised several interesting questions that will undoubtedly be part of future discussions about politics.  Vivek, of course, is jumping into the conversation about New York politics because, as a capitalist who made a lot of money in New York and is now planning to be the governor of Ohio, he is uniquely positioned to have a debate with what the political left thinks of as a bright young star, in Mamdani.  But critics of communism and socialism expect a more visceral hatred of Mamdani than Vivek shows to people.  I’ve had the fortune of knowing Vivek personally, and this is true for most people: bright individuals who can debate any topic with anyone don’t have to get defensive every time a challenge arises to their belief system.  So Vivek can have a very cerebral discussion about Mamdani without getting too upset that the trend in Democrat politics is a radical leaning towards far-left, Marxist policies.  And most people have been taught, through years of Cold War policy from the over 50s crowd and onward, that we are to approach communists and socialists with anger, like they are the invaders we saw in the movie Red Dawn.  Vivek comes from a much younger generation, and that’s a good thing because, in the post-Trump years, many things are going to change.  People are realizing right now, and with Mamdani, just how dangerous all the socialist instruction in our public schools has been.  And most young people have had extensive exposure to it through public education. For too many voters, this issue has snuck up on them, evoking a lot of fear in people like Mamdani.

I have been warning everyone about the problems with socialism for many years.  And while public schools don’t overtly have classes teaching Marxism in general, it is implicit in the background of almost everything done in the teaching process, including in kindergarten, when the teacher instructs you to share your toys with your neighbor.  And that everyone is equal.  Vivek Ramaswamy’s approach to the communist problem is to debate it, because he can.  Not to fight them in the streets or call them names.  There are many young people, like Zohran Mamdani, who will be able to utilize social media to capture the attention of young voters who lack opportunities to surpass their parents’ achievements.  For many young people who can’t afford to buy their own home or have children, life seems unappealing and not worth fighting for.  While most MAGA supporters of today’s politics likely have their own car, their own home with lots of property, maybe even a boat.  Several kids.  A pretty good life, and something that they want to defend from people who want to take all that from them.  Vivek understands that the under-50 crowd has vastly different motivations and perspectives, and that they don’t feel the need to fight for anything, because, from their perspective, they don’t have much to fight for.  Their minds have mainly been rotted out by the public education experience that taught them all the wrong Marxist things about social equality and the value of private property ownership.  Therefore, portraying our political enemies as revolting figures will not win over new voters, because those new voters essentially share Mamdani’s perspective. 

That’s why the future of the MAGA movement needs to include people like Vivek Ramaswamy and J.D. Vance, who can debate any issue with anyone, anywhere.  And Vivek certainly can, and that is the way to win over the next generation of voters.  If, during the Trump years, the goal was to overcome all the lies that had been told to us by a government that sought global socialism as its governing principle, now the shoe is on the other foot.  It’s not enough to question the government of socialists and to run them out of office.  The problem that J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy will face with young people is that many of them have to be taught the virtues of capitalism from scratch.  We can’t just hold up Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and tell them to read it.  They need to understand it relative to their thoughts as young socialists who we have let get out of control, rob away their hopes and dreams.  Fighting socialism and communism with the kind of Cold War hatred that we have in the past won’t work on today’s social media.  Capitalism has to be sold to people all over again.  It will help to have a successful Trump administration to point to so that young socialists can see for themselves how much better a capitalist system is than their socialist and communist teachings.  In the world’s plans, they never thought a Trump character would ever hold a position of power, revealing just how powerful capitalism could be.  His election was crucial in many ways at this particular point in history.  But do not assume that the new generation will have a hatred for communism as previous generations in America have.  It’s quite the opposite.  Most young people will have to be taught from scratch why capitalism is so much better, because they certainly haven’t been taught why in school, or entertainment, or their social groups. 

The shock everyone has felt at hearing Mamdani utter outright communist sentiment, wanting to be the mayor of New York City, what many think of as the capitalist capital of the world, is the reality that this new generation of young people is more prone to accept elements of Marxism because it’s all they know.  And for many, this issue snuck up on them as they realized how much of modern-day social media is dominated by young people who are just like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and now Mamdani.  We say today they won’t and can’t win elections if this is what the Democrat Party is.  However, this is what the Democratic Party has been for quite some time.  They just hid it all behind a social mask, but it’s always been there, and now that people see it and hear them talk, the realization they have toward it is hatred.  However, be cautious not to demonize all these young socialists, as the goal is to win over that generation in a competitive race for the minds of a new generation.  And understand that capitalism has to be sold to them because they were not taught its value, and they do not have a natural love for it.  It will take someone like Vivek Ramaswamy to explain it to them and show them why it works.  They can’t expect just to read Adam Smith’s book and draw their conclusions.  They will have to be taught, with considerable debate.  And Vivek is just the right mind for all that.  He understands the problem all too well, even as many are just now waking up to it and have been caught off guard.  The next generation in America has to be mainly taught from scratch.  Their minds have been ruined.  And hating them won’t convince them to join you.  We have to earn them to our side person for person. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Thank Goodness Kristi Noem Thought to Ask the Question: We don’t have to take our shoes off at the airport anymore

Thank goodness Kristi Noem thought to ask the question, because many things in government are just like this.  Someone comes up with a stupid rule, and we end up following it for the rest of our lives without question, even though it was dumb to begin with.  And that was certainly the case when it came to the security measures that were implemented after 9/11.  Our FBI and CIA didn’t do a very good job in detecting a terrorist cell within the United States training to fly planes in Florida, but not caring to land them, and our security got caught napping, so those terrorists were able to get onto commercial planes and use them as weapons of war.  And the crises of that moment made people clamor for corrective action, which human beings most often overreact to.  And the Department of Homeland Security was created, giving us the TSA, and the dumb policy of removing shoes at the airport while going through security.  Now, over twenty years later, it hasn’t saved anyone anything, but it has certainly cost a lot of time and misery.  And until Kristi Noem was put in charge of Homeland Security and asked everyone working there why we were still taking off our shoes at security checks, nobody had an answer.  The only thing they could say was that we were doing it because we had always done it.  Never was the question asked whether we should be doing it at all.  Thankfully, Kristi Noem, due to the weak reaction to that question, changed the policy, and we no longer have to remove our shoes at airport security checkpoints.  It’s a significant step toward addressing many issues that amusement parks have already identified.  An overreaction to security to cover the impediment of actually doing the job the first time is a dumb idea, and it’s good to see that policy go.

It has been terrible to deal with the security procedures since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  The entire creation of the unionized TSA has been a disaster, making traveling by plane a miserable experience.  I try not to do it unless I have to travel overseas, because essentially it takes all day to travel.  I never feel comfortable arriving at the airport less than two hours before a flight because many things can go wrong, especially at security.  Nobody is saying that we don’t want security on flights.  However, it’s the kind of overcompensation that we see with the TSA that’s the problem.  Private security would be much better than unionized labor, which often fails to perform effectively in any field.  There is plenty of technology these days that can detect bomb making equipment just through a quick scan.  We don’t need to take off half our clothes through the demeaning process of vulnerability in front of hundreds of other people.  This idea of stripping away your identity into a near locker room vulnerability is just dumb and lazy.  And it never made us a safer society.  It just made us feel that way.  If people just did their jobs the first time, many of the well-known terrorist attempts that we know of on airplanes wouldn’t have happened.  However, these days, the technology is so advanced and intrusive that there’s no need to take off all your clothes to board an airplane.  With domestic flights, and I fly out of Cincinnati, if the destination is east of the Mississippi River, it’s much better and faster to drive.  And because of that, think of how much money airlines lose because of the TSA rules.

People don’t talk about it as much as they should. Think how much money Homeland Security has cost airline companies by being such a pain in the neck that people don’t buy plane tickets.  It’s a massive opportunity cost.  Before the creation of Homeland Security and the introduction of the TSA’s overly restrictive rules, many airlines had significantly larger hubs.  Delta operated a central hub that served numerous destinations from Cincinnati well into the 1990s.  Because flying was easy and not so intrusive, people chose to do it.  Once they turned the experience into essentially a locker room at the YMCA, it has cost airlines a lot of money in lost opportunity cost.  Some of the low-cost carriers have found a way to adapt somewhat.  However, the experience of flying has deteriorated significantly.  If you want to dress up and go somewhere to show the best version of you to the world, you don’t fly in a plane.  Because it’s such a demeaning experience.  And for a long time, amusement parks were just as bad.  However, they have recently upgraded their scanners, and as a result, they wave everyone through much faster.  The scanners can practically see through your clothing, leaving nothing to the imagination.  But at least you don’t have to strip down almost naked to go through security.  We live in a society that needs to do things faster, not slower, or safer.  We need people to do their jobs better the first time, and everything would work so much better.  And to Kristi Noem’s point, nobody had even thought to ask the question, “Why are we doing this dumb thing?” all this time.  When the answer was, “because we have always done it.” 

The convenience of flying and getting somewhere far away quickly has become a ridiculous compromise of personal merit, and it never should have been.  The airport’s safety policies have ruined the experience of traveling with others because people often show up in their pajamas, knowing that their travel day is going to be intrusive and demeaning. When you pay that much money for something, it shouldn’t feel the way it does.  It should be fun and rewarding.  People should dress nicely when going to the airport.  By default, due to excessive regulations, airports have become unpleasant places with excessive security, ineffective communication systems, and dirty and uncomfortable seats.  And the staff treat the whole experience like you’re lucky to be there, rather than being grateful that you bought a ticket that funded all their jobs.  The concept of prioritizing safety over profits, when in reality it was always laziness that was the real problem, has made owning an airline too complicated and a draining experience for customers.  And if not for Homeland Security and the TSA specifically, we’d have many more consumer options in airports that are much better for us than what we currently have.  And most of the time, it always starts with asking the right questions from leadership. “Why are we doing this dumb thing?”  And when nobody can answer it, you eliminate the policy.  Thank goodness, because of Kristi Noem, we no longer have to take our shoes off at the airport.  And hopefully, we can roll back many other misguided ideas that were implemented in haste to make people feel safe, when the reality was far from the case.  In all things economic, whether it’s amusement parks or airports, faster is better, and more options are always preferred.  And we don’t want dumb, mindless rules to ruin economic activity that should bring us joy and opportunity.  Just because lazy security guards don’t take their jobs very seriously and have to be turned into a union-led monstrosity to give an illusion of effectiveness, the truth is very far from it.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Vivek Ramaswamy’s Ohio Campaign for Governor is all About Family First: Getting rid of red tape in Liberty Township

Vivek Ramaswamy discussing taking the red tape out of a red state!

It was good to see Vivek Ramaswamy again.  Mark and Leslie Williams had a nice, private event for him to talk about the campaign status and the going-forward steps and probably the best thing I have heard in politics so far was what Vivek said about Ohio, that it was a deep red state, but that it would not be the state of red tape.  That his run for governor was committed to restoring Ohio to the nation’s greatest status in wealth generation among all the states.  And given his understanding of things and personality, I think it is very much possible.  The moment I found out that he was running for governor, I was excited about it.  And since he launched his campaign just a few months ago, he has turned his efforts into a nice running machine that will cascade into many exciting opportunities that many have never thought possible.  Vivek Ramaswamy understands, and as I have watched these GOP events develop over the years, there was something very different going on that was exciting —a festivity to it that was not politics as usual.  But before we get into all that, I have to say, Mark and Leslie did a great job with the event, including the fantastic food table set up with finger foods that they had in the middle of the gathering space, established for this meet and greet for Vivek.  I took a picture of what was left of it after a few hours, but it was quite something to see.  All the little things in the event were done with just a little extra flair that makes spending time with people on a Saturday night of political talk more enjoyable.  And once Vivek gave his speech, took pictures with people, and had to get on to the next thing, people stayed around talking and catching up because they didn’t want to leave such a wonderful occasion.

When this started it was quite an exhibition. It was a lot of food!

I was one of them, I was happy to see so many people I like to talk to all in the same place.  I enjoyed seeing most of Nancy Nix’s family there, mom, sister, aunts, grandchildren, her husband Bob, we all like each other naturally, and it was nice to catch up under those conditions.  Everyone knows I love Nancy Nix; she is one of the best for a reason, and a lot of it is that she has a nice and loving family, which is evident to everyone who can see.  I had just spent time with one of my favorite trustees, Todd Minniear, a few nights before.  With his wife Jamie, they are a couple of my absolute favorite people and they were there.  Thomas Hall and his family were there too.  His mom and dad are good, solid people, and if you haven’t noticed, there is a pattern to my accolades.  I often judge the value of people by the kind of families they come from and are creating for themselves, and for me, it was a great evening because I had a break from the broken dysfunction that often comes with associating with a lot of people from diverse backgrounds and social structures.  Here, almost everyone shared the same strong family values that I greatly appreciate, making it a great evening for me.  My wife doesn’t always get to come to all these events.  When we launched the campaign event for Vivek a few months prior, she had to miss it due to other family commitments that we had.  However, this time we were able to coordinate things in a way that allowed her to attend, and she enjoyed herself as well.

As usual, I always enjoy seeing George and Debbie Lang when they are in a place where things go as well as the Williams event allowed.  Where the accommodations are set up thoughtfully, so that people can easily discuss essential political matters.  As a critical Senator in Ohio, everyone wants to talk to George, so my time with him is often spent with me looming in the background to discuss as many important things as possible.  However, in a large group like that, it’s not easy to convey everything in brief statements, as time may not allow.  But when people wonder why I like George and Debbie so much, it’s that core value system again. They are a great family that really loves each other, and I value their sincerity, both with each other and with the world around them.  When people wonder why George Lang is good at his job, a common theme among those who have come out in early support of Vivek Ramaswamy for Governor of Ohio is that they see the state in the same way they see their families, with love and care.  And those are their primary political motivations.  No matter what personal success they have had in life, and I know that is the case with Mark and Leslie Williams too, who hosted the event, they want to put that same effort into making Ohio the top state in the country, and the world, for people to live in and raise good families.  If you are a family-first kind of person, knowing these kinds of people makes sense.  And I enjoyed myself for all those reasons.  One of the primary values that everyone I knew shared at this event was a love of family, and they all did just a little bit more than average to have good families. 

I enjoyed catching up with Darbi Boddy.  People have been wondering about her since her time as a Lakota school board member concluded in legal gymnastics.  People have asked me a lot why I like Darbi so much.  She is a good mom who talks to God frequently.  And since she left the Lakota school board, she has been hanging out with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.  My wife noticed the pin she was wearing, and it was the same one that she had.  Let me say, Darbi is doing some great things that will manifest into goodness in a few years.  She is more deeply engaged in politics than ever, and I am very happy and proud of her for all that she has accomplished.  A common theme I have been discussing is that many people are unaware of Darby: she loves her family, and her involvement in politics is aimed at helping more families emerge in the world. I have a lot of respect for her hard work in this regard.  I like her kids, and I like her husband.  I want to see people like that succeed in the world.  I also enjoyed catching up with Bob Hutsenpiller.  We have a long history together. Similarly, he and his wife have been together for a long time, and his business has been a family affair throughout his long career.  And he’s just a good person trying to make things just a bit better in the world.  My joke with Bob is that he usually comes to these political events with work shoes because he is always on construction sites and has worked hard all the years I have known him.  And I would say that was the common theme among all the people I mentioned, and many more that there isn’t enough time to discuss.  But Vivek Ramaswamy makes it easy, just as President Trump has; these are all people who value family, and they are treating their state and country with the same love they pour into their families.  And it shows.  I met Vivek’s parents and got to know his wife at the event we had at CTL Aerospace, and I was happy that he recognized me out of all the people he has spoken to over the last several months.  But Vivek loves his kids.  He loves his wife.  He loves his parents.  And anyone who is that caring about the people in their life can show the same love to the state they are running.   And for me, that’s why I care so much about the people who were at that event.  The common theme was family first, even if nobody explicitly stated it.  You won’t catch any of the people I mentioned in some sex scandal where they are cheating on their spouses for power and prestige.  In most cases, everyone at that Vivek event already had power and prestige.  But what they were fighting for was something much more important: the power of family and the values that come from it, and carrying that attention over into political office, where it can genuinely make a significant impact.  And for me, being around such people is the best evening I could hope for.  I’m very much looking forward to Vivek Ramaswamy being the governor of Ohio.  That will be a good day!

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Juneteenth is a Dumb Holiday for Lazy People: It was Republicans who freed the slaves

We have too many holidays as it is; we certainly don’t need one more where everyone stays home and looks out the window.  People need to work more, and not emulate the lazy Europeans and their excessive time off lifestyle.  I was pretty surprised to learn this year, in 2025, when June 19th arrived, that it was a federal holiday and all the banks, along with many large companies, were closed.  It was a Thursday, essentially in the middle of the workweek, and everyone was gone from the office, which I found shocking.  The Juneteenth Holiday was in effect from when it was passed in 2021, and for some reason, it became a thing this year.  Last year or the year before, I didn’t notice it much.  But this year, it seemed oddly out of place, being placed alongside other holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day, and the Fourth of July.  Juneteenth is a holiday created by lazy people using racism as a mask to hide their lack of engagement.  Democrats made it to hide the sin of their slave holding past in an attempt to appease their current desires to work less and follow the Marxist trend to have as many days off a year, and to follow Europe, where all the countries have some level of socialism to them, into a stagnant economy with short work weeks and very little productivity.  I hear it all the time from people I deal with in Europe, they think Americans work too much and are constantly stressed out.  They think it’s smart to take more days off, have more extended vacations, and stay home from work every time they have a runny nose.  I disagree vehemently.  I think people should work much more than they do now and for far more extended hours.  We can’t have the most GDP and strongest economy in the world unless you are willing to outwork everyone else.

It was stunningly irresponsible for many of the large companies I was aware of, including Juneteenth as a day off for their employees.  You have to be kidding.  It’s part of that whole DEI push that has been so destructive.  As if by recognizing the holiday created by the Biden Administration to appease voters they think would vote for them because of the color of their skin, to honor the end of slavery, those companies would prove that they weren’t racists.  By bending the knee to radical Marxism and communism that have been exported into communities of color to take advantage of any past hard feelings, the belief is that unearned guilt can be relieved.  But that is the fool’s perspective who doesn’t know their history.  It was Republicans who freed the slaves.  It was Democrats who kept them, so those of us who were never supportive of slavery, and I am certainly one of them, were never guilty of slavery.  Instead of a name like “Juneteenth,” it should be Frederick Douglass Day or General Grant Day.  Or “thank you, Republican Party Day.”  “Not Juneteenth.”  The name itself is embarrassing, and comes from a Marxist background from radicals within America who hate the country and want to bring it down from the inside out.  By recognizing the holiday with a lazy day off, we give Democrats cover for the sins they committed with slavery and allow them to gain merit in appeasing minority communities hoping to win votes by giving them a day off in remembrance of what they want to establish as the unwarranted start to a country built on slavery. 

Marxist groups are behind all this as their ideology from Karl Marx established the attack of communism throughout the world to attempt to stir up the disenfranchised to rise against their current governments.  And that is the case in just about every corner of the world.  And in America, the Marxist groups behind the Juneteenth holiday are part of that ridiculous 1619 Project that was popular at the time to rewrite history around the premise that America and its economy should have never been created because it was built on the back of slavery.  When the truth is that, without America coming along, slavery would likely still be practiced commonly in the world.  It was the creation of the American Constitution that paved the way for the world to remove the practice of slaves in all economies, which had been going on everywhere up to that point for many thousands of years.  It was the American North and specifically the Republican Party that emerged to end slavery.  It was highly controversial at the time.  It wasn’t just America practicing slavery. Instead, slavery had been inherited from the English, the French, and the Spanish in the regions they controlled in North America.  And it was the Revolutionary War that created the conditions for America to be born as a nation, and to take those territories away from those other countries that practiced slavery.  Once the federal government could be elected to use a political party to create a mass movement against slavery, it was the Republican Party that led a war against southern Democrats to free the slaves.  We shouldn’t call the ending of slavery Juneteenth Day; it should be in honor of the Republican Party.  And specifically, President Grant, a great war general and president who was too fair to everyone. 

It was The New York Times Magazine that launched this idea in 2019, marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia, and attempting to reframe the creation of America as a country, thereby undercutting its foundation.  The Juneteenth holiday is a way to trick people into buying into this ridiculous nonsense with a day off work to celebrate, then validate their argument.  But it’s just another excuse for people who don’t like to work to create another holiday to justify being unproductive under the guise of a good cause.  The world doesn’t need more time off work.  It needs to work harder.  And people need to know their history.  Republicans freed the slaves, and if not for America, there would still be slaves.  It took a free country for the world to see what free people would be like.  Until that occurred, nobody understood what “freedom” meant.  And it took another century for the Republican Party to come along and challenge a long-term European standard of slave labor to provide work for economies.  During the age of invention, as machines could perform work relieving humans of tasks, the human race could finally have that debate.  So, if we are going to celebrate something, it needs to be that Republicans freed the slaves in the newly created nation of America.  But we already celebrate freedom on the 4th of July, so we don’t need another useless holiday for people to sit around and eat nachos by the pool.  People need to get back to work.  We need to dump this useless Holiday of Juneteenth so that we can get to the banks when we need them.  How dare those idiots think that it was appropriate to shut down all the banks in the middle of a work week?  What a stupid and reckless thing to do.  That tells you a lot about just how woke our banking system is when they take off for Juneteenth.  And that is a whole problem of its own. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

In Florida, You Can Run Protestors Over: Fighting communists rioting against ICE deportations

You did notice that there are no mass protests in Florida, where communists trained in our colleges take to the streets in one of these anti-ICE deportation mobs to block traffic with their bodies.  In Florida, if people throw their bodies in front of your car to stop you, you are allowed to run them over.  There are some technical and legal gymnastics involved, but in essence, protesters are not allowed to block traffic in Florida.  Because drivers won’t be prosecuted for driving over their scummy, dirty, communist bodies, and that’s how it should be in every American state.  It’s nice to have Free Speech, but that speech cannot impose itself on other people and cause them discomfort or even harm.  And blocked traffic is reprehensibly disruptive.  But there’s more to it than that, even.  We are not obligated in America to tolerate enemies of our nation.  And to hide hostile, treasonous intent behind any form of Free Speech.  And this is what the social Marxists, communists, and open socialists want to do by working against the values of America while using the values of Free Speech to attempt to undercut the foundations of society itself.  We must recognize what is truly happening with these individuals. Suppose they show up to a rally outside of Sheriff Jones’ jail in Butler County, for instance, as they have been doing, wearing a t-shirt indicating membership in a socialist organization. In that case, they are openly declaring war against the United States and the self-governed people of that nation.  And actions worse than legal prosecutions are more than justified.  Those people are declaring war on our way of life, and we need to treat them that way.  We have no obligation to be accommodating to people who are trying to overthrow our country, and these protestors against the ICE deportations are with their stated intent.

There is a lot to unpack behind the supporters of these protestors who have blocked traffic in Los Angeles and made themselves into a menace to society.  Having different opinions on a matter and expressing them openly in the marketplace of ideas is one thing.  Impeding people’s lives with those opinions, with the explicit intention of using force and inconvenience to convey their point, is not acceptable.  And for the people who are financing these protests, there is a lot of action that we must take against them.  Everyone needs to stop thinking of the government as something separate from themselves, done by some mysterious people in power.  Self-government means we elect people into positions that need to be filled, and they work on our behalf to accomplish the tasks assigned to them.  So we must protect that government from attack when it does happen.  In this case, Trump was elected to do our work.  And we must preserve his ability to do that work on our behalf.  That work cannot be stopped by a bunch of lifetime appointed judges with both feet into Marxist causes as they have been lured into that political philosophy during their Friday night wine tasting social gatherings, and they have learned to drink the brew with their pinky out to disguise from their spouses detrimental elements of porn addiction and diabolical life choices they want to hide behind collectivist living.  The people who are attacking our country are attacking us, and they use these mindless, dumb kids right out of college, and the old hippies of the Flower Child generation who are still alive to provoke them into antagonisms against all things American.  Even in some of these protests, the American flag was burned while the Mexican flag was hoisted with reverence as if domination over occupation were a forgone conclusion. 

Most of the wars that Americans have fought over the last century were against socialist, Marxist, and communist forces and their attempts to overthrow our capitalist system of economics.  We have gone to war, for instance, to prevent Korea from being overrun by communism.  We did the same in Vietnam.  What’s left of the Soviet Union, which Vladimir Putin is trying to unite Ukraine back under the home country from its fall from communist power, is at the heart of the modern conflict.  China is a communist nation that is exporting communism all around the world, including providing financial backing for many of the ICE protests.  The conflicts in Central America have been over the spread of communism.  Communism took over and ruined Cuba, creating a lot of trouble for the United States.  And the military action of choice by these communist groups has been to change their tactics from open aggression to legal challenges.  For instance, rather than go to war again with the United States in Korea recently, the communists just penetrated society to the point where they rigged elections so they could steal the government as they just did in South Korea, and took over the country without firing a shot.  They have tried to do the same thing in America.  The Joe Biden presidency was a good example of that very intention.  A presidency was stolen and given to a communist supporter, which Joe Biden was.  They did the same thing in Brazil with Bolsonaro.  They used election fraud to remove him from office, then lawfare to strangle him in court.  This is how the communists, who are the enemies of humanity, work in the world.  They have changed their approach, and in America, they attempt to conceal themselves behind free speech, expecting not to be identified as hostile agents of the American way of life.  And when they show up to a protest wearing socialist membership t-shirts, they are making it easy to identify who they are and what needs to be done to them.

There has been considerable debate about the role of communism in a free society.  For a long time, people on the left assumed they had an equal right to express their opinions in that free society.  But Democrats, socialists, and communists of Marxist thought are a political party that is hostile to American values.  When we discuss the political right and the political left, we are referring to support for Adam Smith’s economics on the right and Karl Marx’s on the left.  One is hostile to the other, and they can’t all coexist in the world, which is the moral of the story behind all the conflicts we have had up to this point and the blood that has been spilled, defining those parameters.  And that is what they are protesting with the immigration issues, open supporters of overthrowing America are trying to import communist ideas into the nation to change the voting standards of a free country, so that they can topple the nation with the pressure of the policies.  So, illegal immigration is an invasion of our country by hostile agents trying to hide their radicalism behind loopholes in the law, which think only countries can declare war on our nation, and that we can’t fight them if a nation hasn’t openly declared war.  But Mexico has come pretty close to it by supporting illegal immigration into America and all the violence and chaos it brings.  But to the protestors themselves, who were taught in our public education system and colleges to become agents of Marxism, we have been too friendly and accommodating to them.  We should be openly hostile and even violent when they show up in our communities with t-shirts showing an affiliation with socialism, communism, and Marxism.  And if they block our road with their communist bodies uttering Marxist values and expect to stop our progress from point A to point B, we should run them over and not look back for a second at their broken bodies and hippie rantings.  It is more valuable to acquire our gallon of milk from the store than to consider for a moment the fractured lives of those hostile protestors and their ill intent toward our great nation.  Their destruction would be an improvement to the quality of our country, and we should defend it accordingly.  We aren’t required to put up with communists in our society under the guise of free speech.  When we see them and they identify themselves as such, we should always be at war with the basic premise of their diabolical existence.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

He Who Owns the Gold Rules: Why the Pentegon won’t be able to get rid of Pete Hegseth

I was thrilled that Pete Hegseth got rid of Susan Rice at her Pentagon job.  I disagree with Bill O’Reilly when he says that the military brass in the Pentagon will run Pete off from his new Secretary of Defense role, as Trump appointed him to reform the military.  I don’t think they will be able to, and here’s why, and why everything that Trump is doing is going to work—he who owns the gold rules.  The administrators are not in charge.  And they are being exposed, and they have lost their leverage.  Susan Rice represents that era of administrators who purposely sought to give away America’s gold so it couldn’t rule the world.  I heard a very funny interview recently from a British reporter trying to challenge Natalie Winters from the WarRoom about America and its place in the world, and let me just say, there are a lot of people who are in for some hard lessons.  Never forget that the real issue is socialism against capitalism, and to make socialism and communism work, there have been many globalist types who have purposely given away America’s gold so that it wouldn’t be able to rule.  And when this globalist reporter couldn’t talk down to Natalie as a young woman, he was exasperated by her arrogance.  But she knows, and everyone else is learning, that the key to stopping globalism is to stop giving away American values to countries that don’t deserve it.  Susan Rice’s firing by Pete Hegseth is part of a larger pattern emerging from the Trump administration, and it is precisely why we voted for him.  People like Susan Rice, a former U.S. National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama, are not going to be allowed to run the Pentagon in favor of policies that weaken America and strengthen the rest of the world that has adopted socialism and communism.  And she won’t be the last to go.

The national security issue is a simple one; I talk about it all the time with my gunfighter at the bar metaphor.  The gunfighter can have his back to the room and not worry about everyone trying to kill him, because everyone wants to find some way to get what he has, because he has value.  As I say, “he who owns the gold, rules.”  Other people may try to steal that gold, but they dare not when you have a superior military or a reputation for being the fastest with a gun, because it’s too risky to confront.  They would rather wait until you sleep and try to steal it that way.  And in the case of our Pentagon, people like Susan Rice have been undermining American independence for decades.  And if we had put some regular general in the system of Pete Hegseth’s current role, we’d get another nobody giving away American wealth to achieve peace.  As a communications expert, Pete Hegseth knows how to sell America to a new recruiting class, and his value has already seen a sharp increase in recruitment.  But for the pretentious people who work at the Pentagon and love to spend a lot of time in Georgetown eating and shopping with inflated wages and lifelong appointments that they don’t fear losing, the old days are over, and they are never coming back.  Globalism has been a bad deal, and one of the most significant bleeding wounds America has had has come out of the Pentagon from people like Susan Rice.

Negotiations with other countries are simple.  Do they have gold?  No.  They have crappy economic systems because they adopted Marxist ideas, which is the case in most of the world, including that English reporter who was interviewing Natalie Winters.  The truth is, America has the most excellent economy, even with far fewer people than China, and that is because of our capitalist markets.  And the bureaucratic administrators of the Washington D.C. culture have been working to undo that, and they will not be allowed to.  They don’t have the power anymore and won’t have the power to eliminate Pete Hegseth from his position.  They have been trying to create a scandal to pressure Pete and leak information to the media to accelerate that pressure.  But this is where things get fun, that’s why Trump put a media star in that position so that he could undo the rumors and pressure, because he knew from the beginning where the threats were.  And those people won’t be able to get rid of Pete Hegseth.  But Pete can undo them, which he started with when he fired Susan Rice.  Who cares what other countries think, or how fair it is for them?  They don’t get a seat at the big boys’ table if they don’t have gold.  Those are the rules of the world, and the only way to get gold in a capitalist economy is to become competitive and have things that the world wants.  Not to wait for globalists like Susan Rice and the Pentagon losers from the administrative state to steal gold from America and give it to the worthless and corrupt so that they can feel like they have a seat at the table.  No, they need to grovel like all the other Marxists. 

This is The Art of the Deal, as Trump has known and written about it for many years.  You have to know your leverage point and not allow others to think they are equal.  If you have something the world wants, you have some leverage to negotiate with.  We don’t need a governing Pentagon and a United Nations stealing American wealth, then lecturing us about sidewalks and roundabouts.  The administrative state has no value in such a world, and to destroy it, Trump is exposing that in favor of those with real value, and Susan Rice and the gang can’t compete on that level.  The English reporter talking to Natalie can’t either.  And they find such a concept of competition reprehensible, because they have been trained as Marxists.  But that house of cards is coming down and being exposed for what it always was.  Remember what I said many years ago about Trump’s second term?  If people wanted to understand it, just read The Art of the Comeback, where he was underwater by billions of dollars, and a homeless person sleeping on the street was much richer than he was.  And how he climbed out of that dire situation, and pretty quickly.  A few years later, he was the star of the hit television show The Apprentice, now on Amazon Prime.  Everyone should watch it and learn, because that is happening at the Pentagon.  And the world with the Trump administration knowing economics better than most practitioners anywhere.  If you want to be valuable in the world and have a seat at the table, find something you do well and use it as leverage to make a good deal.  Don’t grovel like a bunch of Marxist losers.  That trend is over, for America.  And we are never going to return to that policy.  And those guilty of it, like Susan Rice, will be fired for poor performance. 

Rich Hoffman

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The Evil of Parkinson’s Law: At the heart of all inefficiency is the human tendency to procrastinate

If you want to destroy a culture, teach them all the wrong things, such as Parkinson’s Law, that the time to perform a task will fill with the work to be applied.  It’s because of Parkinson’s Law that we have timers in sports; otherwise, the game would be boring because the pressure to perform would be nonexistent.  But the human desire to procrastinate is ever-present, so when you leave it to them to come up with what they think they can do, or what they want to do, they will tend to take up all the time that is available to do it.  So when we talk about the efficiency of something, the biggest villain in the world is probably Parkinson’s Law.  When we talk about government efficiency, we are talking about schedules and fulfilling the needed work to complete them on time, or ahead of schedule.  If left to their own devices, however, people will pad their part of a schedule to the point where, by the time everyone does it that’s involved, suddenly you have grotesquely long lead times and a horrendously inefficient processing.  It has always been bad, and the basic task of any management system is to push people out of their comfort zone and achieve things faster than they would otherwise do.  That’s why there are 2-minute drills in football: to get the most done possible in a short amount of time.  Without that pressure, the game wouldn’t be very exciting.  If we asked players how much time they needed for something to get done, they would ask for weeks to achieve a touchdown.  However, the pressure of time and its management are what make the game exciting.  Without it, things get boring really fast.  And that is the biggest problem we have in the world right now, Parkinson’s Law. 

If you have dealt with the government, no matter what city you’re in, you’ll know that parking garages are very busy from 8 am to 9 am.  It’s hard to park in a parking garage in any downtown area during that busy time of the day.  But by noon, the parking garages are nearly empty, and by 3 pm, most everyone is gone home for the day.  Government workers seldom do much of anything before 8 am; by 3 pm, they are almost non-existent.  This came up recently when some people in government were trying to explain to me the lead time to approve a submission to them, and they indicated that they needed another 27 days to perform the task.  The pressure to perform on time was not even remotely present in their lives, and they resented the question even being asked.  Their attitude is that you’ll get it when you get it and be happy about it.  It’s the kind of thing that I complain about regarding BMV stations all the time.  Government workers have been taught that functioning under timed pressure is something not required of them and that it is actually a work benefit not to feel that pressure.  So, no wonder it takes so long for the government to do anything.  And because we use the government to teach our people, the government has taught our society the same dumb stuff, and now our entire civilization uses Parkinson’s Law to avoid the stress of performance in every industry.  We still enjoy timed performance in our sports.  But for our professional lives, we use it to full effect as a passive aggressive hatred for doing jobs that we’d rather not do, and because we are forced to make a living by performing work, we have used Parkinson’s Law to remove the demands and stress of having to do too much work and buy ourselves more leisure time because bored people in the world are miserable specimens of existence and want to shove that misery onto other people because they resent having jobs in the first place.  And that lack of passion has killed most of our industries, from drive-thrus to hospital visits.  Everyone these days involved in schedule making is using Parkinson’s Law to avoid doing hard work, and it has virtually killed most industries.

Behind Parkinson’s Law is the communist labor movement that is anti-management because they are anti-time.  They have sought to remove management from all processes by selling the idea that the workers own all work and that management and ownership are greedy capitalists and must be removed from the process at every level because management imposes time standards that compress schedules.  In a typically slow place of business, you will find unionized labor at the heart of the problem, you would be hard pressed to find any that perform efficiently.  They encourage companies to hire too many workers to overstaff themselves because the time of opportunity to utilize a workforce entirely is limited by rules like an 8-hour work day, only 5 days a week.  Weekend work is almost unheard of, and the unions want to take credit for being less productive.  Some tricks can be used to shake them off this foundation, such as Lean Manufacturing, which Toyota has used to significant effect.  But most of that is because the Japanese people’s work ethic and management systems do not yield to Parkinson’s Law, and their culture avoids it like the plague.  But generally, Parkinson’s Law is not just a disease of the mind, as most people think.  It’s a disease of society.  You cannot talk about making a process efficient if you do not deal with Parkinson’s Law.

One of the truly great innovations of our modern society has been the Chick-fil-A drive-thru, which is among the best out there, at least in my experience in the Cincinnati area.  During their lunch rush, they quickly produce and deliver an enormous amount of food with a double lane drive-thru.  People go to Chick-fil-A because of the excellent service they get there.  The chicken is good, but it’s the service that rules at that popular fast-food restaurant.  The staff is always happy to serve and doesn’t waste your time.  And people feel they get a better product at Chick-fil-A because their time is respected.  They don’t make you wait; if you do have to wait, they are all over themselves with apologies.  Chick-fil-A’s success in the marketplace is because they have created management systems that remove Parkinson’s Law from their interactions with the public.  And the result has made them the best in the industry at drive-thru service.  All the other fast-food restaurants have allowed themselves to be eroded with increased regulation that imposes Parkinson’s Law into their Labor Department processing, and it shows in the rate at which food hits the window on a drive-thru.  If you’ve ever been to Europe, you will see that this need for speed is something they resent a lot.  And too many Americans have been convinced they should follow the Europeans.  But hidden in the background of that belief is the poison of slowness that comes with raw global Marxism.  And behind those efforts is Parkinson’s Law, which panders to the worst of human behavior, which shows in their work.  Which then deprives the culture of performance and merit.  And it all starts with Parkinson’s Law.  It’s been around for a long time; it’s not a new invention.  But it’s gotten worse over time, not better, and after twenty years of Obama and his types in government getting their point across, Parkinson’s Law has migrated into just about every field of endeavor.  Even amusement parks have bought into this trait by selling fast passes.  They purposely make you wait in long lines to force you to buy their fast passes, for an admission ticket that is already expensive.  They use the burden of time to force people to pay more for an expedited experience.  FedEx and all the carriers do the same thing.  If you want it fast, you’ll pay more.  You’ll hire too many.  The truth is that people should want to do better.  Managers should show them the way and the workers should listen rather than allow procrastination to rule over the work that needs to be performed. 

Rich Hoffman

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