Tag: 700 WLW

CNBC is Actually a Cable Television Station: The marathon race of people who already lost

I honestly didn’t know CNBC was still a cable channel until I watched the Republican debates on October 28th, 2015. What a pathetic mess those moderators were. They had a record 14 million viewers which is probably more than watch their network over an entire year and those idiots spent their time in the sun showing the world why they are such a ratings bust. I can’t believe those people are actually employed who work at CNBC. I know there is a liberal bias in the media—we know where it comes from as I’ve covered The Naked Communist for a number of years now, and that was one of the strategic objectives by the communists going into the 1960s was to take over both political parties and to control the media. They do—and have on both accounts—but come on. These idiots were just way too obvious about it. Who do they think their potential audience is—the Bolshevik Revolutionaries of 1917? Or maybe it’s the Cuban nut jobs under Castro. Perhaps even the Mao fanatics from China? I didn’t know that there was such a television network that actually had so many radical leftist on a payroll, because I can’t say I’ve ever watched the network—because they never appeared to have anything on that I’d be interested in. Now I know why—geez!

I’m not a fan of all the Republican presidential candidates, but after listening to some of the questions by the CNBC moderators, each of them—even Governor Kasich sounded like rock solid Republicans. Trump’s lambasting of CNBC at the end of the debate was spot on—and so was Marco Rubio’s comments—as were Ted Cruz’s—even Jeb Bush looked like a conservative next to the crazy lunatics on the CNBC moderations panel. Where do these people come from—Hugo Chavez’s personal bathroom? The presidential nominees had a right to be upset, during the recent Democratic debate the questions were so much easier for them—but for the Republicans everything was a gotcha question. They were deliberately designed to make Republicans look bad.

Although I generally liked all the Republicans on the stage that night for different reasons I am still a firm Trump guy at this point. The whole system needs a Teddy Roosevelt type who may very well yank the nation back away from progressivism—whereas Teddy pulled the bar so far to the left as a Republican. By the end of his 7 years in office, Roosevelt was more like Grover Cleveland than he was Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party now needs the opposite to happen and it will take a bombastic personality like Trump to do it. No soft talking Ben Carson will work, or soft faced Marco Rubio. Cruz is too hated by insiders while Rand Paul is not worldly enough. Fiorina is too weak—she is a good debater, but her track record as a CEO is not robust enough. Jeb Bush is too establishment and way too nice. John Kasich is too far behind the times, he’s like those marathon runners who cross the finish line three hours behind all the top-tier runners and then puts a picture of himself on his office desk showing that he’s a marathon runner.  He confuses participating in a marathon to being a contender. Huckabee is a nice guy—a pastor type but is way too passive to slug it out with the greasy slime of K-Street—which is where the real fights for the next president are really at. Nobody but Trump has the right stuff to be president on behalf of the Republican Party. Nobody likes to fight as much as Trump does, and the next president will have to LOVE fighting.

It would be my hope that either Ben Carson or Ted Cruz would be the Trump running mate so that a president Trump could set the stage for a 2024 election of a real conservative for perhaps the first time since Calvin Coolidge. Ronald Reagan was an actor playing the part of a conservative that he acquired late in life. I want a conservative that is that way in their marrow of their bones, and within Cruz, I think there is one. But he’s not ready yet and the environment is all wrong for him presently. The day after the debate Paul Ryan was elected Speaker of the House which many people think is the same as electing an establishment candidate, and he is. But the bar is at least headed to the right again as opposed to the left. Ryan is at least an Ayn Rand fan and deep down inside will lean in that direction if allowed. Under a president Trump I think he would move more conservative than he is under an Obama president, much more so than John Boehner. Like his friend Kasich, Boehner is another hour behind him in the marathon puffing away on cigarettes. The sun has set on Boehner a long time ago only nobody told him that the flashlights at his feet were from his supporters who didn’t have the heart to tell him that the sun had already set—and the race was over and the finish line was already disassembled. They didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Paul Ryan is not the best choice, but he was a Tea Party darling at one point, and is proof that the needle is moving back to the political right.

So that’s the trend yet CNBC seemed so far behind the times that they hadn’t even started that marathon race that Boehner and Kasich were already proudly running well behind the front-runners. I mean, it was disgusting—that people actually think as liberally as those idiots at CNBC. I can’t imagine how they even pay for the cameras to keep the network on cable—unless those people work for nothing. It’s a good thing they had the debate because I didn’t even realize they were a channel—I had mistaken them for MSNBC which I used to give some credit to just because I liked Microsoft. But that loyalty went away after Bill Gates became the face of Common Core—and Jeb Bush with it. Microsoft’s influence on MSNBC is gone now, whereas in the early days it was on the tech side of news coverage with was good. But now they are all about progressive politics and are just ridiculous. I had no idea there was even a channel to the left of them!

I supposed I’m grateful that now I know, because of the debates, but I am seriously embarrassed for them as a network. There were so many stupid things that they said that even in hindsight it seems unfathomable. Yet they are real, and the questions they asked were to—all of them with a liberal spin. If there was ever any doubt that The Naked Communist had predicted such a thing successfully, that the media would be controlled by communists in the future—then CNBC is the proof as to that reality.   But even that terrible reality isn’t anywhere as sinister as it was a year ago. Now liberals are more of a joke than ever—their policies have been proven ineffective and rejected by sane voters everywhere. They just haven’t paid attention to the memo yet. And that was never more evident than at CNBC. Wow, they are out there and are a dying breed. Watch them before the go extinct, because in this climate, they are well on their way.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Cowboy Way: Living by a code of honor with guns as a centerpiece

Those who don’t know much about guns or their place in American culture are easy to seduce toward the diatribes of those who fundamentally want to change our nation into something else—a much less morally reticent and overwhelmingly evil utopia for the socialist of heart. They think of the NRA as a mean spirited organization resistant to change. Well, resistant to change is true—because what gun-grabbers want to change America into is something that gun owners typically don’t like. I am obviously a member of the NRA, but also of satellite groups within it—affiliates such as Second Call Defense. I’ll remind you again dear reader, if you go to the Second Call Defense website and type in Overmanwarrior, they’ll give you your first month free—and you should do that—for your own good. I am also a very proud new member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association—which reflects my new hobby/career as a gunfighter. I’m so serious about it that I’m thinking of listing it as my new official profession. As we speak I am turning the basement of my home into an indoor shooting range specific to that hobby—and I’m very excited about it. The reason why is that I love the type of people who are in these groups—especially the CFDA.   They live by a very specific code of ethics called the Cowboy Way. Below are a few examples of that way of life for which gun owners in the CFDA adhere.

Gene Autry’s Code of Honor

  1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage – even of an enemy.
  2. A cowboy never betrays a trust. He never goes back on his word.
  3. A cowboy always tells the truth.
  4. A cowboy is kind and gentle to small children, old folks, and animals.
  5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious intolerances.
  6. A cowboy is always helpful when someone is in trouble.
  7. A cowboy is always a good worker.
  8. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents and his nation’s laws.
  9. A cowboy is clean about his person in thought, word, and deed.
  10. A cowboy is a Patriot.

Hopalong Cassidy’s Creed

  1. The highest badge of honor a person can wear is honesty. Be truthful at all times.
  2. Your parents are the best friends you have. Listen to them and obey their instructions.
  3. If you want to be respected, you must respect others. Show good manners in every way.
  4. Only through hard work and study can you succeed. Don’t be lazy.
  5. Your good deeds always come to light. So don’t boast or be a show-off.
  6. If you waste time or money today, you will regret it tomorrow. Practice thrift in all ways.
  7. Many animals are good and loyal companions. Be friendly and kind to them.
  8. A strong, healthy body is a precious gift. Be neat and clean.
  9. Our country’s laws are made for your protection. Observe them carefully.
  10. Children in many foreign lands are less fortunate than you. Be glad and proud you are an American.

http://www.jcs-group.com/johnwayne/literary/codes.htm

When people or groups of people criticize the “Wild West” and “cowboys” in general they are essentially attacking the values expressed above. In today’s world those values might appear to be out-of-step, and archaic—but I think they are a whole lot better than what anybody in the world of today is adhering to. The mythology of the American gunfighter as expressed by the values of old cowboys like Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy is worthy of more serious consideration. When I talk inflamingly about being an American gunfighter it isn’t so much to have the ability to shoot human beings—it is to behave in a way to protect the Cowboy Way reflected above. Being a gunfighter isn’t about fighting with guns—it is about fighting for them and propping them up as a symbol of those Gene Autry values. I dare anybody from any gun-grabbing group to criticize those Cowboy Way values—because those who do have designated themselves villains against the American philosophy that built our nation.

Guns in American culture is not about killing, or even hints at violence—although those are certainly associations most common to weapons of all kinds. Guns are about preserving the Cowboy Way, which is why NRA members and other shooters tend to embody respectful values toward one another that reflect those elements because the traditions that guns protect are rooted in the Cowboy Way. That Cowboy Way was established during a period of western expansion that took place after the Civil War and was built up through a mythology of the American gunfighter. The strength of that mythology lasted well into the next century all the way up essentially until the 1960s when communist insurgents implanted themselves in the hippie movement and advocated against those Cowboy Way values.

Being a gunfighter is an essential part of American culture and with every gun grabbing politician and modern entertainer who stands against that Cowboy Way mentality we all have a right to be extremely angry at them for what they are trying to do. One of the ways I am combating that imposition and channeling that anger in a constructive way is in taking up membership with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association so that I can preserve the way of the cowboy from an older generation that needs some support. They are directly an affiliate of the NRA—so they are gold in my book. Additionally, I have lent myself to the Second Call Defense for the same precise reason. An armed America is a good America because the roots of gun ownership resides with the philosophy of the Cowboy Way—which is a whole lot older in this country than the recent progressive slant toward European sentiment.

When I say I intend to be a gunfighter as a profession, it doesn’t mean that I plan to assassinate bad guys with a gun—although if I do find myself in a self-defense shooting, I have my Second Call Defense card and I’ll let them handle the police when and if it happens. So far Second Call Defense has an excellent track record. Most self-defense shootings by members aren’t even going to trial because of it, because police know that with Second Call Defense they can’t use a shooting to politicize an issue or justify their false interpretation of the law under the scrutiny of a pro Second Amendment lawyer. So they just leave the case alone to avoid the embarrassment of prosecution in court. A lot of times the shooter in those self-defense cases has a lot more rights than they think they do, and gun-grabbers hope that the general public never learns that reality—so they can continue to weaken the Second Amendment due to ignorance. I see Second Call Defense as a perfect way to strengthen the Second Amendment, so I am a supporter. I carry my membership card proudly.

Yet for me that’s not enough. I want to be even more proactive in defending the Second Amendment especially due to the latest round of incursions from the political left. We have talked about this gun-grabbing time for a long period leading up to this latest phase, so now is the time to buckle down the defense of the Second Amendment into something more voracious. That’s why I’m proud to be a member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. They stand for the roots of firearms ownership, the Cowboy Way—the mythology built around gunfighters and the capitalist oasis that they paved to become the greatest country on earth. There is no way to remain a great country without private gun ownership because it all starts there—not with the intent to kill or maim with them—but in honoring guns as the instrument of focus for establishing a Cowboy Way of thinking evolved through the heart, bravery, and tenacity of the American gunfighter.

The Cowboy Way is a mode of thinking that not only needs to be resurrected in American culture; it needs daily maintenance to solidify into something for which society can build their foundations upon. It completely changes the way people interact with one another—it’s a code of conduct that works hand in hand with capitalism to bring prosperity to all who dare wake up in the morning to enjoy it. It’s unlike anything created anywhere on the face of planet earth during any period of history ever known. So there is no comparison to other nations and what they are doing to ban or reject guns from their societies. America is unique, and part of that story comes from the Cowboy Way. It’s not something we need to change or further contemplate—it is something we need to be proud of and to strictly adhere to from here on out—and that begins with maintaining a love with guns that has been abused due to political influence that is completely unwarranted, and destructive.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Gun Rights “Shall Not Be Infringed”: Philosophy trumps legality–get to know Senate Bill 199 and Senate Bill 180

I get really tired of all this talk about gun control. On Saturday Night Live shown on October 10, 2015 the obvious attack against guns was incredibly obvious. They did several skits attacking guns showing how the progressive New York culture sees the rest of America. Well, just for clarity not to the gun owners who read this site each day, but those progressive types who are way too politically left-winged, the Second Amendment is not up for debate. It is not up for negotiation. And there is no interpretation of the words “shall not be infringed,” that opens the door for more rules, confiscation, or government involvement. As lawyers do try to discuss the meaning of words which can take on different meanings as times change the Bill of Rights is an extension of American philosophy for which legal terms evolved. The intent of the Constitution therefore does not fall under the proper interpretation of legal minds, but philosophy. And the essence of that philosophy is that governments cannot be trusted—which is grossly evident in our modern news cycles. Here is how the terminology has been misinterpreted by legal minds giving the illusion that the Second Amendment can be modified to suit some progressive diatribe—such as those shown on left leaning news outlets and entertainment venues.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Such language has created considerable debate regarding the Amendment’s intended scope. On the one hand, some believe that the Amendment’s phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” creates an individual constitutional right for citizens of the United States. Under this “individual right theory,” the United States Constitution restricts legislative bodies from prohibiting firearm possession, or at the very least, the Amendment renders prohibitory and restrictive regulation presumptively unconstitutional. On the other hand, some scholars point to the prefatory language “a well-regulated Militia” to argue that the Framers intended only to restrict Congress from legislating away a state’s right to self-defense. Scholars have come to call this theory “the collective rights theory.” A collective rights theory of the Second Amendment asserts that citizens do not have an individual right to possess guns and that local, state, and federal legislative bodies therefore possess the authority to regulate firearms without implicating a constitutional right.

In 1939 the U.S. Supreme Court considered the matter in United States v. Miller. 307 U.S. 174. The Court adopted a collective rights approach in this case, determining that Congress could regulate a sawed-off shotgun that had moved in interstate commerce under the National Firearms Act of 1934 because the evidence did not suggest that the shotgun “has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated milita . . . .” The Court then explained that the Framers included the Second Amendment to ensure the effectiveness of the military.

This precedent stood for nearly 70 years when in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court revisited the issue in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290). The plaintiff in Heller challenged the constitutionality of the Washington D.C. handgun ban, a statute that had stood for 32 years. Many considered the statute the most stringent in the nation. In a 5-4 decision, the Court, meticulously detailing the history and tradition of the Second Amendment at the time of the Constitutional Convention, proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms and struck down the D.C. handgun ban as violative of that right. The majority carved out Miller as an exception to the general rule that Americans may possess firearms, claiming that law-abiding citizens cannot use sawed-off shotguns for any law-abiding purpose. Similarly, the Court in its dicta found regulations of similar weaponry that cannot be used for law-abiding purposes as laws that would not implicate the Second Amendment. Further, the Court suggested that the United States Constitution would not disallow regulations prohibiting criminals and the mentally ill from firearm possession.

Thus, the Supreme Court has revitalized the Second Amendment. The Court continued to strengthen the Second Amendment through the 2010 decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago (08-1521). The plaintiff in McDonald challenged the constitutionally of the Chicago handgun ban, which prohibited handgun possession by almost all private citizens. In a 5-4 decisions, the Court, citing the intentions of the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment, held that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the incorporation doctrine. However, the Court did not have a majority on which clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense. While Justice Alito and his supporters looked to the Due Process Clause, Justice Thomas in his concurrence stated that the Privileges and Immunities Clause should justify incorporation.

However, several questions still remain unanswered, such as whether regulations less stringent than the D.C. statute implicate the Second Amendment, whether lower courts will apply their dicta regarding permissible restrictions, and what level of scrutiny the courts should apply when analyzing a statute that infringes on the Second Amendment.

Recent case-law since Heller suggests that courts are willing to, for example, uphold

  • regulations which ban weapons on government property. US v Dorosan, 350 Fed. Appx. 874 (5th Cir. 2009) (upholding defendant’s conviction for bringing a handgun onto post office property);
  • regulations which ban the illegal possession of a handgun as a juvenile, convicted felon.  US v Rene, 583 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2009) (holding that the Juvenile Delinquency Act ban of juvenile possession of handguns did not violate the Second Amendment);
  •  regulations which require a permit to carry concealed weapon. Kachalsky v County of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81 (2nd Cir. 2012) (holding that a New York law preventing individuals from obtaining a license to possess a concealed firearm in public for general purposes unless the individual showed proper cause did not violate the Second Amendment.)

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment

That’s just a bit of history on how the Second Amendment has been knocked back and forth over the years. Yet the trend in spite of New Yorkers like those found on Saturday Night Live around the rest of the country is for gun laws to become less stringent not more so. For instance in my home state of Ohio there are two pro-gun bills being introduced for discussion which are very important.   The Ohio Senate Civil Justice Committee had a hearing Wednesday, October 7, at 2:30 p.m. in the Finance Hearing Room to discuss two pro-gun bills.

Senate Bill 180, sponsored by Senator Joe Uecker (R-14), would allow an employee to store a firearm in their locked vehicle without fear of employer retribution.  Throughout the country, many employers have adopted “No Firearms” policies that extend beyond the physical workplace to include employee parking lots – areas often accessible to the general public and not secure.  In order to comply with these policies, many employees must choose between protecting themselves during their commutes and being subject to termination by their employer.

The fundamental right to self-defense should not stop simply because you park your car in a publicly accessible parking lot owned by your employer.  When companies invite employees to park on their property, they should not be allowed to dictate employees’ constitutional rights inside one’s own vehicle.

Senate Bill 199, also sponsored by Senator Uecker (R-14) and Senator Randy Gardner (R-2), would allow an active duty member of the military to carry a concealed firearm without obtaining a concealed carry license if the active duty member is carrying a valid military identification and a certificate indicating a small arms qualification.

If your company has such a misguided policy that impedes your inherent right to self-defense, please contact NRA-ILA’s State and Local Division at state&local@nrahq.org and share this information.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20151006/ohio-nra-backed-bills-up-in-committee-this-week

And that’s where I stand, there needs to be a lot more guns out there, not less, and we need to be able to carry them in more places more often. The trend is clear and the necessity for more guns is obvious. Guns are not just instruments of death the way left leaning politics frames them—they are part of the philosophic American experience. They transcend legal interpretation as philosophy trumps legality because it is in thought that all law emerges. So to undo some of the laws misinterpreted by sissy-driven legal minds over the years, the Ohio Senate Civil Justice Committee is working to walk back the intrusions that gun owners have been conceding—illegally due to improper legal negotiations from the anti-gun lobby over previous decades. The activism displayed on Saturday Night Live and other anti-gun venues made a false assumption—that gun rights “shall not be infringed,” were up to debate. They aren’t under any circumstance. End of story. It’s not complicated. Guns=philosophy which trumps legality.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

What Carlos Todd and Donald Trump Had in Common: Eminent domain and the opening of Liberty Center

The Donald Trump speech from Norcross, Georgia at the North Atlanta Trade Center on Saturday October 10, 2015 was particularly telling of American politics. It was a great speech and it should be watched—seen below. Just a day later after the Sunday morning talk shows Trump continued to beat on the same kind of drum. Trump’s accusations were confirmed when Obama appeared on 60 Minutes later that same day after the football games and was grilled by Steve Kroft over the destabilization of the Middle East, also shown below. In that 60 Minutes segment was discussion over the upheavals in the Republican Party after a week of nobody wanting to be Speaker of the House—because of the Freedom Caucus. There is a lot going on, and it’s very clear that only someone like Donald Trump is equipped to handle the very volatile situation. Obama clearly is not privy to the current trends—he’s in extreme denial—as is most of the Beltway.

On issues regarding the Second Amendment, trade, immigration and economic growth, Trump is a far right conservative—so much so that Republicans should be drooling within the party at his intentions. He has the ability to market the Party in a new way they haven’t enjoyed since Ronald Reagan and they’d do well to embrace him. On the other hand, he is rather liberal regarding taxes, healthcare, and eminent domain. I could argue all day long with Trump on those issues—but they are his thoughts and he couldn’t do any worse than what we’ve had so far. I am willing to take what’s right with Trump metaphorically, and literally and offset the negatives because he is the kind of person who can get things done—and things need to get done. The Party bosses may not like Trump, but they’d be stupid to pass up on the chance of a lifetime. Trump would build a wall on the southern border, he’d expand the military, and he’d restructure the tax system all while stimulating the economy which are all things he’s capable as president to have a direct influence on, and at 70 years old, Trump has enough gas in the tank for one last spectacular decade of his life and America should give him a shot to go out with a bang. Obama has already embarrassed America—stepped all over the Constitution, and caused irreparable damage on Capital Hill. Only extreme success can fix the situation now.

As the Liberty Center shopping complex begins to open in my hometown it is ironic that one of the biggest Republican Party bosses in Butler County’s history was laid to rest. Essentially the Liberty Center shopping complex was made possible because of eminent domain. I was always against the Butler County Regional Highway construction which ran right through all the areas I used to play as a kid. Carlos Todd was a developer who built the Republican Party base in Butler County to essentially use crony capitalism to complete his building projects. Our political system is so dysfunctional that the only way to get projects done on a massive scale is to purchase politicians with money and loyalty—and Carlos Todd was one of the masters. He died at 77 eventually to his battle with cancer leaving quite a power vacuum in his wake.

I was in firm opposition to Todd and his Butler County associates Michael Fox and Bob Shelly as the Butler County Regional Highway used largely eminent domain to destroy my childhood home, a cemetery that had Revolutionary War soldiers in it, and several Indian Mounds that populated the area destroying a lot of potential archaeology. I thought of Todd as evil incarnate on the face of the earth because the Republican Party led by him was buying up property to develop for their projects stepping all over the rights of private citizens in the process. It was incredibly wrong and I was made even more furious when they took my father to a baseball game where the developers had a nice private box and convinced him to sell to Todd all in the name of progress. Their basic sales pitch was, sell and profit, or fight and be destroyed. They had the power of government to destroy, so he should take the money. I had been willing to fight them to the ends of the earth with any means necessary, but it was my father’s property—and his right to do with it whatever he wanted. So the developers got their way.

Well, Michael Fox eventually went to jail, Bob Shelley got into sexual harassment troubles and was pushed out of his trustee seat, and Todd drifted off into the shadows as his grandson took over the family business. There has been a lot of change and upheaval since then as the Regional Highway was built and slowly development began to appear around it. Bridgewater Falls is just such a development, which I have slowly come to enjoy over the years. Liberty Center is the latest, and most spectacular, but was it worth all the pain it caused people to run all over their property rights to build it?

When I started No Lakota Levy all the characters from those eminent domain fights joined together with me to fight the Lakota levy because the local public school was blocking out some of those developers from further work and the district had reached a saturation point. Developers had built all the buildings they could hope to ever construct leaving the taxes enormously high on all future development tipping the balance away from everything that had been built by them. I had always been against the explosive growth because of the sustainability of it, so now I was on the same side as people like Carlos Todd and the developers he largely controlled. It was strange to get to know all of them from a perspective on the other side of the fence. Most of the emails I sent or received had Carlos Todd copied on them so he was well aware of what we were doing and it threw me back to when I was in opposition with him and I was able to map out how he controlled things from a distance. My hatred subsided toward him because I saw what he was doing—he used government—which had stuck itself in every crevice it could over a long period of time—to hedge the bets for his projects in his favor. I couldn’t argue his method or reasoning. The developers were productive people making things that didn’t exist previously—and that was a good thing. Some of them I liked quite a lot, some I didn’t. I worked with them and just did my thing eventually doing as I always do—just sort of taking over. When the heat got too hot for them they checked out and we parted ways. Every time we’d meet toward the end they’d try to poke me into running for office, so I deliberately sabotaged the relationship with them to get out of that circle not because I disliked them, but because I needed to maintain my own course.

I’m sure Todd would have liked to see the Liberty Center open, but he didn’t quite make it. I am proud that its there, and of all the hard work many people endeavored to construct it. I think it’s a miracle of economic activity and the best minds of architecture. But was it worth it? Was it worth the building of the Butler County Regional Highway? The destroyed lives, the destroyed history and the integrity of Butler County politics? The answer is yes—even though it cost me personally. True, the world would have been better if everything had been left alone, but there’s a lot to be said about creating something from nothing and I appreciate that more than stagnation for the benefit of sentimentality.

The reason I told that story is that establishment Republicans, many of which were put in place because of people like Carlos Todd have mostly committed vast amounts of evil using eminent domain to destroy the lives of many. Donald Trump is not alone in that effort and he shares a lot in common with Carlos Todd, a developer who used politics to get what he needed to accomplish done. Getting to know Todd and his troops well from the other side of the fence I was able to see what was really in their heart. Sure, some people were bad, and they went to jail, lost their seats or ended up wiped from the face of the earth one way or another. But the good ones endured because through competition there really is no other way to sustain your essence, but through authenticity, and Carlos Todd was authentic—just as Donald Trump is. No question when you do things that relate to other people, they will have an opinion one way or the other. The judgment of a person’s character is determined by how they act under pressure. What people do under pressure validates their worth—and Todd showed that he had a lot. I might not always like what he planned to do, but his effort had purity to it. But within that purity there were many people who were trampled on and were smacked around quite a lot.

The real answer is to get politics out of development and remove many of the regulations that cause all this evil. Until that happens people like Carlos Todd and Donald Trump will work the system to their advantage. That is why I feel that Trump—after a lifetime of making deals and running over people can actually straighten out the mess of politics and its terrible relationship to business. Ideological people who have not built things themselves but were relegated to just giving their opinions about things do not have the benefit of my life where I’ve been very active on both sides and know clearly where the line is drawn. I can only treasure that opportunity because it gave me the philosophic foundations to understand all these complexities without losing sight of the real objective—economic growth, the sanctity of private property, and the evil of a system that the most clever among us learn to use to get things done—in spite of the desire of that system to destroy all thought and action. Donald Trump is an insider, and I would love to see what someone like him—who likely hates the system as much as I do, would commit himself to if given a chance to right the ship in ways that Carlos Todd never came close to achieving. But for Republicans to turn on Trump as a radical maniac who would wreck the party—they are in denial at what put them in office in the first place. They’d be wise to get behind Trump for the strength he provides and for giving them an opportunity to have their office seats. Because without people like Carlos Todd, Donald Trump and eminent domain—most of them would still be small time hacks looking for an opportunity that would never come otherwise.

The only way to change the system is from the inside by someone who knows it better than anybody. That’s why I’m voting for Trump. His use of eminent domain and the guilt I’m sure he feels about it I think would make a person determined to correct that situation for the benefit of economic wonder which everyone would eventually enjoy. Trump is in a position to morally build a philosophy of growth by utilizing the lessons learned from crony capitalism into a more laissez-faire system perhaps for the first time since the first few decades of America’s creation. And that would be wonderful.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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End of The Drudge Report: A calm before the next American Civil War

Well, the full court press by progressives is on and they have shown their cards. In the wake of another round of gun violence it is obvious what the strategy is. Matt Drudge gave a rare interview with Alex Jones predicting the end of his famous internet news site The Drudge Report because of something a Supreme Court Justice said to him. The next Civil War is well at hand—because of progressive intrusions, and while there is still civility the mechanisms for which they control is attempting to shape the battle ground. They want to control the media in all aspects so they can cut the lines of communication between free people. They want to disarm the public so that there is little resistance to their incursion. And they are selling all this effort with a perceived professionalism that is rather dangerous. Watch Matt’s interview here which sounds remarkably similar to the interview I gave to my friend Matt Clark recently. Click here to review that. Watch the Drudge interview here:

I agree with Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association (NRA), when he famously claimed that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” There are a lot of bad guys out there, at all levels of the world. Some are thugs in the streets looking to steal from those who work; others just want to terrorize to satisfy their own infantile egos. Low level terrorists work through radical groups, or are individuals crazed with hate. More sophisticated terrorists hide their maliciousness behind orthodox behavior and reside within the world’s governments. And it is they who speak through the work of publications like The Nation which said the following in reaction to Wayne LaPierre’s gunslinger comments about private armament.

The Nation spoke to several people who do—combat veterans and former law enforcement officers—and who believe that the NRA’s heroic gunslinger mythology is a dangerous fantasy that bears little resemblance to reality. Stephen Benson knows what it’s like when bullets start flying. The former Navy SEAL saw extensive combat during his three tours in Vietnam. Later, while recovering from the wounds that earned him his third Purple Heart, he also trained elite troops at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, California. “In chaotic situations, the first thing you know is that the shit has hit the fan and you don’t know where the fan is,” says Benson. “And unless it’s constantly drilled into you, it’s very hard to maintain discipline in those situations. You’re immediately hit with a massive thump of adrenaline. Your mouth begins to taste like copper. You can hear the blood moving in your system. You can even experience a kind of time-warp. And the problem with that kind of state is that conscious thought shuts down because you’ve been taken over by your nervous system, and your nervous system is saying, ‘holy shit, things just got really bad.’”

http://www.thenation.com/article/combat-vets-destroy-the-nras-heroic-gunslinger-fantasy/

As a connected issue to all the above progressives are looking toward Australia as a solution to the gun control avocation they support most. In Australia essentially the government bought back guns from the public, kind of like the cash for clunkers program seen in the United States a few years ago. The big difference is that if people refused to participate, they were threatened with jail. The Australian 1996 National Agreement on Firearms was not a benign set of commonsense gun-control rules: It was a gun-confiscation program rushed through the Australian parliament just twelve days after a 28-year-old man killed 35 people with a semi-automatic rifle in the Tasmanian city of Port Arthur. The Council of Foreign relations summarizes the Aussie measure nicely: The National Agreement on Firearms all but prohibited automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles, stiffened licensing and ownership rules, and instituted a temporary gun buyback program that took some 650,000 assault weapons (about one-sixth of the national stock) out of public circulation. Among other things, the law also required licensees to demonstrate a “genuine need” for a particular type of gun and take a firearm safety course. The council’s laudatory section on Australian gun-control policy concludes that “many [read: gun-control activists] suggest the policy response in the wake of Port Arthur could serve as a model for the United States.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425021/australia-gun-control-obama-america

So there you can see dear reader how the collective consciousness of mass progressives—globally induced is establishing its attack run on American liberty. First, they intend to shut down free speech by strong individual advocates, like Drudge. Next they wish to continue to establish trust in a central authority, like public school teachers, and police run by international trade unions philosophically committed to socialism. Then they plan to disarm society under the guise of safety. Their only opposition is in building up public momentum against their individual enemies with public sentiment. Now that you know that much, go back and listen to the Drudge interview once again and listen carefully. The guy has been at the top of his game for two decades and knows most of the major media personalities in the United States on all sides of the political spectrum. He’s not a conspiracy wack job. He’s a very real and conscientious person.

As to the assertion that NRA gunslingers are no match for the well-seasoned combat veteran let me put that one to rest. Without question there are many brave people who serve in the armed forces—but to me that is part of the problem of mass collectivism. They are effectively employees of the government and if the government goes bad, they become the enemy against liberty—so there must be checks against their power with individual—and equal ability. But let’s be clear about something, and I know I’m not the only one out there—but under strenuous situations I trust myself far more than any police or military officer to remain cool under fire. If I were not a married man, I would be a contractor such as what works around the world outside of the military services, so professional soldiers don’t impress me. And most cops are such a panicky lot that they make fools of themselves all too often during traffic stops and late night run-ins with drunks at bars. CLICK FOR AN EXAMPLE IN MY TOWN. I certainly don’t want police officers and military personnel to have supreme command over my life and property. No disrespect to them, but they need checks and balances from a civilian presence who is better armed in most cases to keep them honest.

I’ve been shot at, been under severe threat, had guns pointed at me and been under every kind of danger imaginable and I don’t rattle. An explosion could go off right next to me and I’d be under complete control. I can control my adrenaline, and I actually thrive when the “shit hits the fan.” I enjoy those moments and I purposely look for reasons to be in such circumstances. There are many Americans like me just as there were people like that in Australia—people like Rod Ansell who was the inspiration for the movie character Crocodile Dundee.   Ansell was shot dead in a gun battle with police in 1999 two years into the gun ban when authorities came to the outback master’s remote home—blocked off the road and fought it out with the old hold-out. There are a lot of people like Ansell in the world, and everyone is much safer with them armed and free.

Make no mistake about it. The intentions from villains hiding behind certified law are lurking for excuses to unleash their ideology upon everything they see standing in their path. If they could, and will likely attempt by virtual of law, is to make an outlaw out of Matt Drudge, just as they did Rod Ansell. When Ansell was killed by multiple gunshot wounds the authorities excused the effort through the rationalization of insanity—that Rod and his 26-year-old girlfriend were hyperactive drug addicts obsessed with an attempt by the Freemasons to take over the world. Since this new breed of criminal has taken off the masks they used to rob banks with, becoming lawyers and law makers instead, they create now the means for looting by legal means—so they can make outlaws of Ansell, Drudge, and anyone else with the signature of a pen instead of the point of the gun—because when all the guns are collected, they’ll still have them—then it will be too late. So you better know what kind of game you are playing and who is moving the pieces and not white-wash the reality with any illusions. We have a Civil War on our hands—the shots just haven’t been fired yet. But they will be—and when that happens, make sure you are a card-carrying member of Second Call Defense so you can stay out of jail while the legal system still works. There will come a time when it won’t, but until then protect yourself. Because nobody else will.   At that point those public sector security types will point their guns in your direction, just as they did at Rod Ansell in Australia. That is what Obama and his progressive friends are trying to create in the United States. The real fight is one of the mass collectivism against the individual—everywhere in the world. And in a world where collectivists make all the rules—it is the truly insane mandated by the weakest links of their order for which they define the rationality of people like Rod Ansell—which is why Matt Drudge is one of the biggest targets on the internet. First it will be people like him—then it will be everyone else.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Carl Icahn’s ‘Danger Ahead’: Why Trump University failed but the billionaire would succeed as president

DOk course I daily keep up with a wide range of subjects and read heavily on them—which is quite a task if I were to think about it. It’s for no other reason than I have a lot of passion for many things. For instance, I forgot to sleep over the past weekend for both Friday and Saturday nights because there wasn’t enough time to do everything I wanted to do on those days. Sleep was not an option. But of those things I have not read lately much in the financial journals. You might remember my alarm while buying a car recently at the extremely low-interest rates. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. I have been thinking about other things, so didn’t really hear the loud voices coming from people like Carl Icahn about low-interest rates. However, as a Trump supporter for president, I did notice the Icahn had endorsed Trump and his tax package for reasons that I had noted centering on interest rates. Icahn is one of the most respected investors in the world so I felt a little pride at recognizing something that he was uttering which should concern every American immensely. Icahn put his thoughts together in a video called Danger Ahead that should explicitly encourage people to favor Donald Trump. The situation is dire and requires immediate attention. I’ve been warning about this phase in the American economy for a long time, but now that it’s here, we have to take action to solve the problem as we are well beyond the point of no return.

Icahn has done several such videos and doesn’t just stop on the corporate inversion concerns mixed with extremely low-interest rates. He goes further and addresses the other major crises present in America, which is so grossly obvious in politics and in business—our society has lost the quality of its people to do basic business. As a supporter of unfettered capitalism, the only way to keep everything in reasonable check is for people to function from a distinct cultural morality. For instance, as Icahn points out, many of today’s CEOs, and Board of Directors along with hedge fund investors are morally bankrupt so they invite snake oil salesman in the form of politicians to induce unneeded regulation on economic matters further restricting the free flow of financial expansion. Icahn has specifically pointed to a particularly low quality breed of manager class that has emerged in America which is proving to be catastrophic to our ability to deal with the financial crises that is coming.

To be a good manager a person has to function from a general foundation of ethical behavior. If a manager has hidden deep within their psychosis insecurities and didactic desires, they are likely unequipped to be good managers. Even worse, in the chain-of-command structure of most American business managers are reluctant to put second-in-commands to nip at their heels challenging their authority with anybody competent. So the incompetent are often the types who find promotions. The best and the brightest are most of the time left to die in some corner of a manufacturing environment as the worst and weakest thrive. This is a trend that has been going on for a long time—so it’s nothing new. But it’s beginning to have an effect on our national GDP that is measurable.

I can say from experience that the world is dying in regard to management. It’s really bad in the United States—most people on the other end of the phone or on an email are completely incompetent for their positions. They are culturally destroyed so that they are not equipped to function in a modern business environment. Good management is becoming a serious lost art in America, but it’s not limited to our borders—it’s the world over. The primary fault of these phenomena is our education systems which have been heavily influenced by politicians who know next to nothing about money. There is serious knuckle-dragging going on in modern business, when the issue should be reversed. Considering what is spent on modern education we should have the opposite problem. So the blame is on our educations system.

There is some criticism of Donald Trump and his Trump University that was in operation during the last decade. Essentially, Trump wanted to create a new generation of business leaders with his education institution infused with his perpetual optimism. It was a failed enterprise, so many in the media are pointing toward that failure to hang on Trump the selling of false promises as if the whole thing had been a scam—and why the billionaire would be a failed president. But where Trump would succeed as president but not as the head of a university is due to the Metaphysics of Quality which I’ve talked about extensively before. CLICK TO REVIEW. Trump as a president is largely a salesman for all things Americana whereas institutional learning cannot teach people to think from the front of the train of thought. Leaders are a special breed. As president, Trump can help create an environment for leaders to emerge, but education institutions cannot make poor managers into good forward thinking people. It just doesn’t work for the masses. Trump tried, but not everyone was ready for the effort of leadership, and this is what’s essentially wrong with all education institutions—even ones infused with optimism of Donald Trump. It takes great leadership to create good managers, and leadership is not the criteria used to invoke promotions. Instead, we have created a system of brown-nosing and schmoozing to accomplish promotions—and that doesn’t automatically create leaders. Leadership cannot be bought with the price of tuition, it has to emerge from within individuals who have value and know how to spot it in others.

Trump and Icahn are free to say what they think because they are rich. They don’t have to worry about making anybody above them angry with their opinions—which most smart people in the world are very concerned about—because their upward mobility depends on it. If they show up their boss—who may well be an incompetent loser, they may not be able to buy that house next year, or a new car. I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of hiring over the years and a common question I ask of new employees is how hungry they are to perform the task they are being hired for. I say to them that I expect them to challenge me for my job—that I want them to bring their best to the game table. I don’t want ass-kissers, or appeasers of any kind. I want people who will challenge themselves every day and look beyond me for their opportunity. I never worry about somebody down talking me to someone else because my reputation speaks for itself. All people who are involved in management should feel that way. But they don’t. They watch with fearful eyes always over their shoulders worried that somebody might notice that they are incompetent—because they have been taught that having faults and being not so good at things was a virtue rather than a detriment that it truly is. Trump and Icahn at their senior ages can afford to be critical. They may not have felt so comfortable saying these things 20 years ago, but now they are because the evidence is so grossly obvious. For the record though, I have always said these types of things, so it’s nice to see others joining the party especially people like Carl Icahn.

The net result of this present debacle is due to the failed philosophy of power within the collective instead of the value of individual merit. When Icahn says that the unions are somewhat at fault for the situation, he means that good managers have thrown up their hands and tossed the meat to the dogs instead of sticking around to fight it out. Those who do tend to stick around these days are the suck asses and losers who are more interested in titles than in the merit of their positions. As low quality people, they look toward the position of their office for social value leaving them little intellectually to provide the masses by way of leadership. So America has destroyed one of its valued commodities—the breeding of good hard-nosed leaders of which people like Trump and Icahn are a dying breed. They are both looking for one last shot at fixing the world starting with America—because both are old men who I believe want to leave the earth better than when they found it. And right now, the risk is that they will leave it far worse—not because of them—but in spite of their efforts.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Being a Big Fish in a Small Pond: Sheriff Richard K. Jones running for congress

It was spring of 2015 and I was at the Brazenhead in Mason, Ohio having a beer with some heavily connected conspirators fresh off the ear rings of Judy Shelton, the local Republican protector of John Boehner within the ranks of the Central Committee where I first learned that the Speaker of the House in Washington D.C. was planning to step down. It was also there that I learned that Sheriff Richard K. Jones was eyeing Boehner’s congressional seat which evoked some interesting thoughts which had been percolating for quite some time. At times I have liked Sheriff Jones. He once gave me a well done portrait sketch drawn in a way that made him look like a Wild West superstar—which I liked. But he lost me when he supported the union position against Governor Kasich’s Issue 2 in 2012, and the Lakota levy in 2013. As larger than life and John Wayne-like that Sheriff Jones wanted to be, he was a strictly local hometown celebrity who would be like a tropical goldfish cast into the frozen waters of the Artic Ocean if he were to go to Washington where much bigger fish than he experienced in Butler County, Ohio were there to eat him quickly—so I thought it odd that he’d even consider risking his reputation at his age to such a politically dangerous enterprise. After all, in Hamilton, he was a big fish in a small pond—but in Washington, where the GOP is changing rapidly under Tea Party influence—the game had changed in front of his face not in his favor.

I get the opportunity to work with lots of people from other parts of the country. In my work with bullwhips locally I was always well-known to be the best that anybody had ever seen. I grew up with that designation where literally everyone I met had never witnessed a person who could crack a cigarette out of the mouth of a willing participant with a bullwhip. For me it was not enough to be a big fish in a small pond, I had to know that I could be a big fish in a big ocean too—so I pushed myself to get better and compete against people from all over the world. Competition after all makes everyone better, even if you don’t like the results. I knew as a bullwhip artist that I could never truly consider myself one of the best in the world if I didn’t challenge myself against people who also considered themselves the best at the craft.

My journey took me to many competitive events; winning several trophies competing with the best that are out there. I even have had some stints in Hollywood dazzling celebrities with my whip work. I know what it feels like to stand in the middle of the road on Brand Blvd in Glendale California where television producers and movie stars were gathered around stopped traffic to watch me perform because they had never seen what I was doing before—and were fascinated. For me personally, it was then that I deserved to call myself a big fish in a big ocean. I had challenged myself and I had to. My life goal was to write stories about the pulp hero Cliffhanger and as the author; I had to know that I could have the swagger in real life of the character I had created. As a writer I had to know that I could do what I demanded my character to do. I never wanted to be one of those sickly writers who live through their art. Rather, my art had to reflect my reality—so I demanded of myself to be really good at the things I wrote about. Yet prior to the year 2000 few people knew about me outside of my hometown. I was a big fish then too, but the pond was small and easy to win in. Outside of my town the water was much larger and there is always the theory that there is somebody better than you. Until you test yourself against them, you don’t have a right to consider yourself the best—and if that’s your goal, you have to step out of the small pond and into the big one and compete.

Between 2005 and 2008 I had satisfied my goal. I had met and worked with some of the best bullwhip artists in the world. There were a few I didn’t get to meet, but at a high level, everyone is pretty even, so you get a good idea of where you stand among them. And it was very satisfying to realize that with all the hard work, that I could swim with the biggest fish in the biggest water possible and hold my own. I didn’t do such a thing to fulfill my personal ego, but to satisfy my literary needs for my own personal work of philosophy. After I achieved that goal I was ready to move on to the next thing and was quite secure in my place in the universe. Those who watched me and competed against me who worked hard to get better and better, I am happy for. I never felt a need to keep up with them or to outdo their efforts—because I know what they are trying to do—which was the same thing that I was—they need to know that they can swim with the biggest of fish. And I respect people who strive to do that. There is lots of room for big fish to swim in a big ocean. There are plenty of little fish to eat, so there is no reason not to cheer on other big fish to grow even larger—and impressive.

When Sheriff Jones first gave me the poster of himself I thought of him as a big fish. The day he gave it to me Fox News was going to have him on that night to talk about immigration issues on the border of Arizona. And during the Issue 2 union debates he and I were frequent guests on 700 WLW radio—so I thought of him initially as a big fish in a big ocean. But over time it was obvious that he was happy to be the big fish in the small pond, because the ocean out there was a bit too threatening. He’s a local boy who will always be the hometown hero, the public servant who marches in parades and made good by the area he grew up in. But going to Washington D.C.—that’s a big ocean that requires more than just tough talk—you have to actually be tough.

Jones showed what kind of person he was during the Issue 2 debates where he thought he was a conservative Republican who attended Tea Party events and was fighting to preserve American tradition. But his view of that tradition was much like John Boehner’s, a progressive touchy, feely, sentiment about conservatism that belonged more in a Sunday school class than in the halls of Congress. As the government in Washington started changing slowly under the Tea Party influences, Jones stood against that tide attempting to preserve the Republican standard nurtured by crony capitalists and pink middle-grounders just a few steps away from socialism on the scales of political philosophy. Issue 2 exposed him as a labor union supporter who refused to see the damage collective bargaining was doing to local budgets. He certainly lost my support, and many others like me who are looking for a purer version of a constitutional republic than we presently have.

When I heard that he wanted Boehner’s seat the first thought I had was that he’d be reluctant to test himself against the big fish of Washington. I remembered my first bullwhip competition against some really talented people—particularly Chris Camp who had won about everything there was to win in the bullwhip arts. He was a star in Vegas, had several world records and was the bench mark of a really good professional bullwhip artist. I worried for days before the competition about having a respectable showing against him. That was nearly 15 years ago, but I remember well how nervous I was about it. It was a bone chilling paralysis that sucked the life right out of you. The reason I was so nervous was that I thought I was pretty good with the bullwhip, but if I couldn’t hold a candle to Chris, I would know that I didn’t have what it took to be the best. Since the bullwhip was one of my signature attributes it was very important to me to be one of the best, so I pressed on. In 2005 after working very hard, I won every event there was against the best competition that the nation provided. I earned their respect and I earned the right to consider myself one of the big fish—and it was one of the proudest days of my life. In the scheme of things, it was a pretty minor deal—a competition at a regional festival. But, in the world of bullwhip work, it was a big deal to me because I had a lot to lose in the attempt.

In the world of politics becoming a congressman at the federal level is like winning that bullwhip contest against a really skilled group of guys. And Sheriff Jones I knew when I heard the story from the political insiders at Brazenhead that the local sheriff wouldn’t risk the disgrace. It’s not that he’d lose the race. I believe he would be elected if he ran for the seat. Butler County is the most populated area of Boehner’s district, which runs all the way up to Greenville, Ohio. Jones could run and win I think pretty easily. I share with him a passion for two big platform issues, his stance against drugs and illegal immigration. But on most other issues, he is as soft as Boehner was, and the now former Speaker of the House was just chewed up and spit out of Washington by a Tea Party wing of the Republican Party that is fast emerging to dominate the party. Those like the local apologist Judy Shelton who have fought so hard to keep Boehner in power all this time are well behind the political current of the times. Conservatives are demanding to move back to the right, they don’t like the left, or even centralist’s positions. And that is where the big fish swim these days. And in that pond, Sheriff Jones is a little fish who will have to scramble for his very life. That’s not a risk I think he is willing to make at this stage of his life. The time for him to test himself with such a feat would have been twenty years ago. The insurrection that is currently happening on Capital Hill for which Donald Trump and several other outsiders are a part are going to change politics from now on. Boehner saw that he was not equipped to handle the hard decisions that are ahead for a Speaker of the House, or even a congressman. So he jumped off the train singing songs. Sheriff Jones is of the same mind. If Sheriff Jones wants to be remembered as a big fish—he better stay in the small pond, because if he goes to Washington, he’ll be eaten rather quickly.

The talk went on that evening and I listened casually while looking at all the magnificent cannons decorating the Irish Pub. It was an appropriate setting for political intrigue and maniacal subterfuge among the socially manipulative. And that made the beer taste better. But I only half believed those sources when they said that Boehner was going to step down. So I have to also believe that Sheriff Jones is going to climb out on that limb and try to take Boehner’s seat. My advice to him would be to keep his image of a big fish alive for the sake of his grandchildren. An embarrassing experience in Washington would be hard to recover from unless he thinks he’s savvy enough to take on the candidates coming out of FreedomWorks. Because they are the future—the past is John Boehner and progressive radio hosts like Bill Cunningham. Sheriff Jones has more in common with them than the candidates nurtured along through FreedomWorks. Getting elected is only half the battle. Getting trampled as a RINO on the house floor is far more embarrassing.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Seattle Education Association: Caving to communism in a progressive utopia

When politicians use the word progressive, be clear that what they are talking about is essentially Bernie Sanders socialism. They intend to “progress” society toward collective salvation to nearly a religious fervor. That’s why they don’t have any hard opinions about North Korea, China, Iran, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece, France or even Russia for that matter, because socialism and communism are the modes those countries are functioning under, and they want the same for the United States. That is what politicians mean by “progressive” when they indicated that society needs to “lean forward” toward it.

Clearly one of the most progressive areas of the United States is Seattle, Washington. The massive union culture of the Boeing employees contribute largely to that, and the music culture that has evolved through their garage bands were undeniably socialist in orientation. They have an actual city council person who is a socialist. It is a highly liberalized part of the country and was one of the first places to attempt a $15 per hour minimum wage for fast food workers. So they have serious issues against capitalism and are certainly as a city leaning well toward pot smoking liberalism of the most severe version of progressive. With that said, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the teacher’s union in Seattle went on strike at the start of the school year holding the tax payers to the fire until city management—which is already on the same side as the progressive labor union—buckled just to get the teachers to go back to work again. Here’s what the school employees received in the deal followed by a short report from the Seattle Times.

 Highlights of tentative 3-year contract:

Raises: 3 percent in first year; 2 percent in second; 4.5 percent in third (state cost-of-living raise is additional). More in 2017-18 for some teachers for collaboration, and eight hours of “tech pay” for all school employees.

Discipline: Half day of training on reducing disproportionate discipline for all school employees. Equity committees launched in 30 schools.

Testing: New joint union-district committee to review and recommend testing and testing schedule.

Teacher evaluations: Test scores will no longer play any role.

School day: Will be longer, but not much for students, and teachers will be paid for the additional time.

Specialist caseloads: Sets limits, which union says is a first, for physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and audiologists.

Source: Seattle Education Association

After four months of negotiations, a five-day strike and one final all-night talk, the Seattle teachers union and Seattle Public Schools reached a tentative contract agreement early Tuesday, and school is scheduled to start Thursday for the city’s 53,000 students.

The Seattle Education Association’s board of directors and its elected building representatives both voted Tuesday afternoon to suspend the strike, recommending the union’s membership approve the deal. The agreement will go to a full vote of the union’s 5,000 members at a Sunday meeting.

The building-representative vote came after hours of deliberation, where cheers and fervent discussion could be heard outside a packed room at the Machinists Hall in South Seattle.

Union bargaining chair Phyllis Campano, exhausted after one hour of sleep after the marathon negotiation session, declared victory.

“Let’s be clear,” she said. “We won the fight on this contract agreement.”

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/seattle-teachers-and-district-reach-tentative-agreement/

What a bunch of communist idiots. That is exactly why education costs so much in America, and why our children are being liberalized during that institutional training. There are no rational conservatives in the process, and even if they did manage to get elected to a board seat, progressive politicians have skewed the table to always favor the labor unions. To properly negotiate a deal against labor unions you really have to be an ass, and enjoy it, because it’s tough. But with a 5 to 7 member school board, one will always be out-voted by the rest, as those who typically run for such offices are liberalized types themselves. I would argue that the best education the kids of Seattle could have had was a few more days at home as these progressive teachers went on strike for more money and power.

This strike was not about any kids. Kids were clearly used as extortion pieces to secure higher wages, lower testing expectations, and more secure livelihoods. To hell with the kids, which is what the Seattle Education Association declared when they went on strike—there’s no other way to frame the debate. It was about money at the expense of the kids for the progressive aims of further substantiation of a communist agenda spreading across the world.

However, this story is an old one. We’ve covered it many times before. We’ve covered it on radio broadcasts, many articles, public debates and anywhere that the issue has been raised. Yet in Seattle, the situation is clear, the politics are grossly progressive and the aims of the insurrection directly applicable to the region. The apparatus for political theater has a well-known cast and everyone benefited except for the kids, because a liberal education is not necessarily better than not having one at all. I would argue that children could learn far more from the popular Leap Frog devices so popular now at the local Target store than a K-12 education in a public school. Such educations are as dirty and disrespected as public libraries where everything is shared and stagnate. The value of such education is clearly deficient. As pollsters like to announce often during the presidential race of 2016, college graduates support Hillary Clinton whereas blue-collar non-college graduates generally support Donald Trump. The accusation is that highly educated types are more able to understand “higher concepts” of progressivism. But such a term is purely marketing and has no basis in reality. It could be just as argued that 16 years of liberalized education is detrimental to a conservative mind and they will leave college prepared to support progressive platform points such as gay rights, open borders, and socialist wealth redistribution. Whereas those who make their own way in life work hard from the ground up and go to bed tired each night, they don’t like to have their money stolen from them by progressives—so they vote with their wallets. The Seattle Education Association is clearly attacking the hard-working as opposed to the unionized slugs and the wealth redistribution that they most support in Seattle, so it’s no surprise that the government school union got what they wanted so quickly. There really wasn’t any opposition, just political theater that showed clearly that the children were not the priority to the teachers.

It’s a hard reality for many to realize, but the educations we all go through within the public education system is nearly worthless. It exists for these unionized teachers to mooch off of, as they provide very little of any worth for a young, inquiring mind, except a radicalized progressive education. Kids don’t learn about the value of cowboys and Indians in public school, but they sure learn how to stand in line, organize in a collective unit, and get voluminous exposure to the progressive religion of global warming. It’s hard work to unlearn all the crap we learn and for those who reject the experience, it’s easier for them. But for all, the reality couldn’t be clearer. If you support the teachers in Seattle you essentially support Bernie Sanders socialism. The people who won in that case were the socialists represented here by the Seattle Education Association. And they pulled it off because there is no free market competition for their services and it’s nearly illegal to avoid the reach of public schools. So they have a government backed monopoly on building future progressives with tax payer money and every year the price tag goes up. And nobody does anything to stop it because they are afraid of being called names for identifying the behavior what it really is—which is a diabolical socialist scheme that would make the communists of the world bulge with pride. And today in Seattle, they are.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

What Donald Trump has in common with Marcus Mariota: Lessons for the Republican Party to learn

I had just been complimentary of the 2015 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in spite of my concerns that they had picked the right quarterback in the draft, but trusted that Lovie Smith knew what he was doing. As the Tennessee Titans won a game epically 42 to 14 with the quarterback I wanted, Marcus Mariota being pulled in the third quarter so not to rub the nose of my favorite team in an opening day disaster—it was obvious Lovie Smith had not prepared his team. Smith was stuck in the past when the Bucs were successful, when the Tampa 2 defense was created, and an era that built several Hall of Fame players reigned supreme. Tennessee drafted Mariota and let him play virtually the same spread offense that he won with at Oregon. Mariota, who had been picked two in the draft, was clearly the better quarterback. The negatives on him were that he wasn’t NFL ready as a rookie, was not a pocket passer, and that his stunts would not work in the NFL. Well, Tennessee ignored all that, let the kid play his game, his way, and the Bucs weren’t even competitive. Mariota had a perfect QB rating for his first NFL start. Lovie got caught looking toward the past and adhering to the unspoken rules of NFL coaching—where Cover 2 defenses are still respected and pocket passers at quarterback are tickets to playoffs.

It was discussed all preseason that Mariota was not NFL ready, yet while playing a pretty good Tampa Bay defense, he was baiting defensive ends and line backers to jump off coverage and defend him leaving often three receivers in single coverage down field as the safeties pulled up to cover the linebackers. He looked pretty NFL ready, and the stats proved it to be. But as good as Mariota was that day, Lovie Smith made him look far better by preparing the Bucs incorrectly for the game. Obviously the Tampa Bay coaching staff assumed from the tape provided by Tennessee’s preseason games that Mariota was going to be forced to adhere to the unspoken NFL rules. But in reality, within 2 minutes of playing, it was obvious that the Tennessee Titans pulled the reigns off Mariota and let him play the way he won in college with the Ducks. Innovation gave way to tradition and the Titans won in a big way.

As I was thinking about that game and writing off another Buccaneers season before it ever got started, two Republican insiders contacted me for the first time in a long time. These were people who had been critical of my aggressive political approach on things and people I had relegated to ineffective wimps in the past. They assumed that my fight first strategy against political opponents was wrong, because the majority in the Republican Party wanted to play nice and expand the base through appeasement—to slowly win over Democrats and other moderates to the Party of Lincoln. I have always been against that strategy and have written much about how to win women voters, minorities, and the youth, and I have been at odds with the general strategies of orthodox political behavior. This has been going on for a number of years with pretty public spats involving Chairman of the Republican Party Carlos Todd, Commissioner Michael Fox, Trustee Bob Shelly, the Lakota School boards of 2004-2005, 2010 through 2015 and of course Judy Shelton and Patti Alderson. Generally the assumption was that my approach was reckless and unprofessional. Then Donald Trump became a political sensation in 2015 and the orthodox was beginning to understand what I’ve been talking about for two decades. If they had only listened instead of fighting me on every little thing they would have won more often and maintained a much more conservative Republican Party as a result, instead of curbing their party to the weakest links of political philosophy.

This article was published during the mighty CNN debate which was poised to change history as Donald Trump—who has always been an original, was essentially doing what I have said to do for years—and he’s winning—big. The presidential debate brought huge numbers to CNN, well beyond even their fantasy of beating Fox News for a change, and it’s essentially because Donald Trump has been a fighter and is offering that to the political landscape for the first time in most people’s lifetimes. And people are responding. As the debate started it was obvious all the other Republican candidates were gunning to put an end to Trump, but the New York billionaire staved off the threat in much the way that Marcus Mariota had avoided the Bucs defense and Lovie Smith’s game plan to dominate easily over a political establishment who had been following the wrong strategy for the past four sitting presidents. I couldn’t help but see a correlation between Donald Trump’s run for president in 2016 and the terrible defeat of my favorite team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on their opening day by a creative and outside the box quarterback in Marcus Mariota. Lovie had picked the wrong guy in the draft and now the Republicans were trying their hardest to pick the wrong guy to run for president in 2016 by destroying their best option.

Currently the biggest issue on the table of the world is the lifestyle of America versus the rest of the world which is leaning heavily toward socialism and the sense of collectivism that fuels it. There isn’t a single policy or law which could be created under the next American president which could save the world from its ridiculous commitment to social collectivism. Nothing said on the debate stage for CNN will manifest into action by any of the candidates other than Trump, and here’s why, because he represents the pronoun I, and every other candidate represents the “we.” America needs to feel good about itself again starting with individual achievement, not through collective “team work.”

The Tennessee Titans without Marcus Mariota would have probably lost to Tampa Bay and Lovie Smith’s “team concept.” Tampa drafted a team leader who could elevate the other players through motivation. Mariota on the other hand easily beat that same quarterback in the college playoffs earlier in the year when Florida State had been undefeated at the time. Mariota beat that player with all different team members on the field in precisely the same basic way, with an unconventional spread offense that favored the intelligence and physical attributes of Mariota. The offense had been built to accommodate the individual who Mariota was.

On the other hand, Jamies Winston of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was molded to an NFL style of play that is quickly becoming extinct but features “team play.” Obviously that approach was wrong and lost to the innovations of the Titans who catered their entire team toward the individual of Mariota. While Smith insisted all preseason stated that the young Winston would need time to acclimate to the NFL, the Titans turned their player loose, and expected immediate results. Time will tell if this approach will last, but for one game anyway, it worked marvelously well and the results were grossly obvious. Winston was picked to be a typical pocket passing quarterback in the style of Payton Manning and Tom Brady. But the game is changing, and Mariota is part of that innovation, and Smith just didn’t see the truck that hit him on opening day.

The Republicans are making the same mistake with Trump. The way to fix America is not through a leader, it is in making people leaders of their own lives, and to do that we need someone who won’t apologize for being proud of their efforts. The self-boasting and pride obvious by Trump in himself is exactly what America needs to feel about itself. That is the innovation of the future in politics, advocating the proper political philosophy, not just going after votes at the booth by appeasing pop culture into participating enough to get Party support for their candidates. It doesn’t matter if Trump was a Democrat, or was a typical New York progressive, or if he is the scum of the universe. What matters in Trump is that he loves himself and America needs to have that guilt removed from them so that they too can feel good about themselves once again. That is the only way to fix anything. I have said so for a long time, and now Trump is really the first to show how powerful such an approach can be. The key is in not allowing the other side to use guilt to paralyze us into inaction. That is the strategy of Democrats and it has worked. The way for Republicans to win is to stop feeling guilty and just let the truth do its job. If Republicans would do that, they’d win a lot more in the game of political theater. And like Trump, and Mariota, they make it look pretty easy because it is. Trust in the pronoun I, and let that “team” crap die with Lovie Smith’s approach to the game of football.

The game plan is now out and there is no going back. Now that Trump has done it, every liberal celebrity who thinks they can run for president will. Mark Cuban might very well be next, so if Republicans don’t seize a celebrity who is currently a conservative, they may very well lose the opportunity to take the White House for the next five decades. There is no going back to a Mitt Romney, or a George Bush. Politicians have abused the system so long that the public is done with them.   So Republican Party people who should have listened to me years ago better listen now. You better embrace Trump. If you do you can have the White House for probably the next 16 years and in 2024, you might just get someone like Ted Cruz. Learn from Lovie Smith of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and don’t get caught looking at what worked in the past. Embrace what will work in the future, and seize the opportunity when you get it. For Republicans, that opportunity is now.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

‘High Plains Drifter’: A Clint Eastwood western that advanced American philosophy

I watched High Plains Drifter as one of the very first movies I saw when I was newly moved out of my parent’s house. I rented it because of the cover art on the VHS tape, Clint Eastwood holding a gun and a bullwhip. I had seen at that time most of Eastwood’s movies, so I wanted to see them all and this one was on the list. I didn’t expect much, but was very surprised to see that the film was a masterpiece—a sheer work of unapologetic authenticity. It may very well be my favorite western of all time and is the summation of a span of westerns by Clint Eastwood starting with A Fistful of Dollars and ending with Pale Rider that defined the genre forever. Eastwood’s westerns were Ayn Rand tales set on the frontier of America and were very much a part of my childhood. I loved westerns, all westerns, but Clint Eastwood westerns were uniquely special to me. I could identify with them immensely. At the time that I first saw High Plains Drifter I was living a very similar life and I didn’t feel a bit of guilt about it. The established order of things said that I should. Until I saw that director Clint Eastwood understood my vantage point in High Plains Drifter, I had nothing but gut instinct to tell me I was on the right path.

I will never forget the Friday before I saw High Plains Drifter. I drove my friends to Miami University for a bit of ruckus activity which ended up in a bar and a fight with the first stringers of the football team. The fight evolved into the back alley where I and one other friend literally took on the football team until the police came and arrested everyone—but me. The reason the police left me alone was strange. I was so mad at the time that I would have punched anybody who came near me, and they seemed to understand that. Instead of feeding their aggression, they backed off and arrested everyone else starting with the outside of the pile working inward. When it was just me and the rest of the police left with blood and pieces of clothing all over the place, I spoke calmly to them realizing and feeling quite satisfied that I had just done something that seemed impossible. My friends were arrested and carted off to jail and I had to find a way to get them out. But otherwise, I was the last one standing even though I was one of the first in the fray. It was a good feeling.

I managed to work things out with the police which ended up at the jail eventually and I had my friends released. I spoke to everyone in charge intelligently, which gained respect and leverage allowing me to get my friends out without a court appearance, which I didn’t think would be possible. My friends were baffled as to how I walked away from the incident without being arrested, and how I managed to get them out of jail. I didn’t know how to explain it myself. But on the next evening we decided to stay home and rent a movie, and that movie was High Plains Drifter. I had my answer at the start of the third act when a woman who Clint Eastwood had just slept with told him to be careful because he was a man who made other people afraid. From that Eastwood explained, “People are only afraid of what they know about themselves inside.” I knew somewhere in that exchange of dialogue was an answer that I would carry with me for the rest of my life. And the woman was right. Confident people—excessively confident people—scare the meager types like those who were in the fictional western town of Lago—from the film. And those meager types were easy to control once you looked them in the eye. That is what many of Eastwood’s westerns from that period were about—but specifically High Plains Drifter.

After watching that movie I felt like a much more focused person. I understood much more about myself—which might be troubling if not for the fact that Clint Eastwood was playing a ghost of some kind in the film—a vengeful spirit from Hell set to cast justice on the small mining town and all the guilty people within it. I thought Clint Eastwood was the greatest director on earth for capturing all the controversial topics he explored in that story with such effortless mastery. High Plains Drifter was a 1973 American supernatural western film produced by Robert Daley for Malpaso Company and Universal Studios, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, and written by Ernest Tidyman (who also wrote the novelization). Eastwood plays an enigmatic wraith, who metes out justice in a corrupt frontier mining town, where he arrives as a stranger.[3] The film was influenced by the work of Eastwood’s two major collaborators, film directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel.[4]

The film was shot on location on the shores of Mono Lake, California. Dee Barton wrote the eerie film score. The film was critically acclaimed at the time of its initial release and remains popular today, holding a score of 96% at the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Plains_Drifter

As I have been thinking about the significance of American gunfighters of late, this film keeps returning to me in a revelatory way. It is important, and specific to the American experience. I didn’t know it when I first watched it, but it is clearly in hindsight a masterpiece. It has within it an element that Ayn Rand brought out in her novels—an overman quality that is so needed. There was an evolution of human thinking that was occurring in that movie that as inescapable. There was honesty to the type of independence specific to American culture that Eastwood had tapped in to.

John Wayne was not a fan of High Plains Drifter. His westerns were about honor, sacrifice, loyalty and courage. While those are appealing attributes, High Plains Drifter was about something else. And I decided that I would commit my life to that something else. I had a taste of it at that campus fight. I had touched on it many times, but Clint Eastwood had fleshed it out and put it on the screen for all to see. His gunfighter character in the film was more than just a man—literally. But that made it even that much more appealing to me. High Plains Drifter is an American movie classic that is in a category all by itself. It is a western—the best of its kind. But it’s more than that, its philosophy—a thinking which is fresh and unique to the individual experience with an unequivocal desire for justice. Justice at every level possible, one that started with the gun, but ultimately enacted with a superior mind and unshakable confidence changed philosophic perspective for the better. It is good to keep the mind on the high plains of life and to face those tribulations alone. For that is the path toward something new, and specific to America. And freedom rides in its wake.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.