Red Ed and the Communists of Europe: Public education in America training Cleveland revolutionaries

What have I been telling you dear reader for a half a decade now? I’ve spelled it out every which way but loose, and still you doubted. I provided facts, charts, long public speeches, countless live radio testimony and still you thought that I was kidding, or making the situation seem lighter for the purposes of defeating school levies. But I wasn’t exaggerating the situation—not even a little bit. I have stated repeatedly that public schools are teaching socialism and communism with a severe anti-capitalist curriculum by a progressive teacher’s union hell-bent on the destruction of the American way of life. This started in America during the sixties and was a strategic aim of the KGB at the time. It’s now in full bloom. For the proof, witness that no news organization in the mainstream reported the force behind the Cleveland riots recently, just as that same force was behind Ferguson and Baltimore. Yet fringe media discovered the evidence quite clearly as they had boots on the ground and weren’t afraid to report it. This is yet another case of Alex Jones, the Texas conspiracy theorist in the report below providing news that everyone else missed—I would say, on purpose. In spite of his reputation as a reactionary, he didn’t put the communists on camera—they were already there. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX and all the other news outlets could have, and likely did see the communist flags and members roaming the streets trying to provoke a mob into riots picking minority communities because they have a history of being impressionable. But the mainstreamers have been taught in the same public schools as the rest of us, and they want to turn away from the hard evidence. But they can’t—its coming out anyway.

The communist insurgency in America is a full-blown conspiracy that is more than right-winged speculation at this point. It’s a fact and emerged as the United States listened to swindling politicians like Dennis Hastert and other elected malcontents strive to be like big brother Europe. The United States has lost their way and plunged unwittingly into socialism. Big mistake, especially given that Europe is currently in the fight for its life trying to reject socialism and its gradual path to communism at this present moment. France for example has a socialist president. Greece is downing in socialism. In fact most of the EU is openly socialist. All of Scandinavia is socialist. Russia is essentially a socialist nation which is just a softened type of communism. Of course they don’t call it by name, just like communism is not called such a Cold War reference in the United States, but the Russian president is a former KGB agent. Does anybody think he has magically just given all that up? China is communist, the only reason that their economy has expanded during the last 14 years is due to them reluctantly adapting some of Hong Kong’s economic free market capitalism. And the biggest brother of them all has been England who has struggled back and forth for years between capitalism and socialism. The socialists are in the Labour Party and the capitalists are in the Tory Party of which David Cameron was thankfully re-elected.

When Great Britain turned Hong Kong back over to China they gave the communist country a money-making machine. Hong Kong was a free capitalist zone far away from the debates in London where socialism and capitalism were slugging it out. Karl Marx is after all buried in a London cemetery near a plot where Red Ed desires to rest on his journey to eternity. Red Ed is of course Ed Milliband who lost the recent election to David Cameron—and is called that because at least in Europe they know what the Labour Party is. Ed presented an anti-austerity plan similar to Greece which essentially means that the government defaults on its debts and swings full communist as a nation. The people of Great Britain had a May election for which they dramatically turned away from socialism by electing Cameron. The liberal press wanted to believe the polls were closer than they were, but Cameron easily won which can be seen in the pictures presented.

The pictures shown in this article come from a newspaper scooped off the streets of London. They are not online articles by some fringe website, this is a paper sold in the airports and streets of London representing the views and conflict of the English people. What they are facing today is what is coming to America—since we foolishly followed them into the abyss—recklessly, and arrogantly. Most dramatically in the paper was a little chart that shows essentially the same demographic political make-up in Great Britain as we see in America. In England they show their conservative areas in blue, in America it is of course red. Just as the English drive on the opposite side of the road in England, America does the opposite to maintain their independence—but the function of their government evolved over time into a mirror reflection—which is how all this communist business so easily emerged into American culture. Just like in the United States it is easy to see that the urban areas are overwhelmingly supportive of the communist movement—displayed by those who voted for the Labour Party member Ed Milliband. Whereas the more rural areas of England voted for Cameron conservativism.

Of a particular interest is the extreme area of red around Newcastle which has been floored by socialism over the years driving away much of their industry leaving the youth essentially jobless. The areas in yellow are essentially open communists for which Scotland is pushing for extensively. During the election the Scottish National Party swept looking toward Scandinavian socialism as their model. The SNP believes in progressive personal taxation, the eradication of poverty, building of affordable social housing, same-sex marriage and subsidized higher education—otherwise known as social programming—does any of this sound familiar dear reader? As is clear on the map the coastal areas of Wales is overwhelmingly in support of the same brand of communism which of course migrates across the channel into Dublin, Ireland in the same manner. Places where there are large concentrations of people who have to give up individual space tend to lean toward socialism. Where people get a little elbow room and can think about their individual sanctity they revert to conservativism by default. Even with all the social experiments through public education, when times get tough, as they have in England for some time, people revert back to conservative concepts driven by capitalism. When a nation realizes that their industry isn’t coming back and there is no hope otherwise, they turn toward nationalism—like Scotland has.

This has always been the plan in the United States by communist insurgents who are in every branch of our education system emphatically. I first learned about these people when I was having a fine little dinner overlooking the city of Cincinnati a number of years ago. It was a college professor from the University of Cincinnati, a theater director at the Taft Theater and an engineer who worked at City Hall along with myself. All three of those people openly advocated twenty years ago communism to me as they sipped wine and looked down into the city below from their backyard perch. I knew it then, but I was a young man and figured I needed to learn a lot more about the world before I opened my mouth—so I just listened. These fine diners vacationed in Paris and London often which was reflected in their global outlook. I was raised in a conservative area by conservative parents and I went to a conservative church. I was open to other people’s points of view and figured I needed more evidence before placing an argument in favor of capitalism. So I listened to them talk in their heady manner and contemplated that those people had no business near young people. They could think what they wanted, but they had no right to teach anybody anything. I had a similar experience years later while on the set for a project I was working on, the director showed up with his wife dressed in a hijab complete with no makeup on her face which I accidentally saw while she was adjusting it. She was as American as the rest of us, he was a college professor who wanted to direct a film and I was a bullwhip artist. We wouldn’t have been together except for a common artistic cause. But our political differences were so dramatic that we couldn’t complete the project together. The college where they worked was so liberal that they couldn’t even function in the world outside of campus life. It was a really big problem and that was over a decade ago. It’s far worse and more obvious now.

The evidence is extensive and all around you dear reader. The freedoms of your daily life are under attack by global communists and they enter into your region through the nearest urban area. They are seeking to make America into a nationalist nation, and because they control the public education process, they have an entire generation trained and ready for the type of socialism that has destroyed Newcastle, England. That same socialism has destroyed Detroit in the United States and is presently destroying Chicago—which of course nobody wants to discuss in the American media either. It’s just too embarrassing for the liberal media to accept. So they ignore it, just as they ignored the communists behind the recent race riots—which was clearly evident in Cleveland.

It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a fact. Communists are likely in your neighborhood and they are teaching in your public schools. They call themselves by different names, but they are at the heart of their philosophy Marxists. Their strategic goal is an end to American capitalism and the traditional Constitution. They are openly seeking an insurgency and the media is assisting them in their task. I have a lot of experience in this as I have touched many cultural pockets over the years, and I tend to have exposure to other regions of the world—not just those in my backyard, and I can say with 100% confidence that the communists have always been there. It’s just been recently that they have made their moves in a bolder, more public fashion. But what’s shocking is that the media didn’t cover it at all. Yet Alex Jones, the fringe reporter viewed by the world as a conspiracy theorists was the only one I was able to find who had boots on the ground in Cleveland and actually reported the communist influence for what it really was. And that is all the evidence you need dear reader as to the movement that’s afoot. For further verification all one needs to do is pick up a newspaper from Europe and see what is going on there. They don’t hide the communists and socialists from the public the way they do in the United States because they are already well into the argument as to the cause and effects. But in the United States those trying to advance communism change the names and try not to rattle the cage until the radicalized youth are so strong that the red county Republicans can no longer stop the insurgency. That’s the plan anyway, and if you had half a brain dear reader—you’d listen. It’s one thing to be a Bible thumping, gun wielding conservative from the rural landscape. It’s quite another to be a cultured, academic from the urban regions contemplating philosophy and the future of mankind. I’ve had extensive exposure to both. I’ll take the guns, and let Europe choke on the socialism. And when it comes to the American versions of Red Ed, I suggest you fight them right now, and voraciously dear reader—or suffer a fate you can’t even imagine. Because communism is on your doorstep as we speak.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Only 50,000 ISIS Nut Jobs: The strategy of global fear

Before I talk about this whole ISIS situation, as both proof of gross mismanagement from government toward a radical group that fancies world domination, but also the perpetuation of conspiracy with strategic objectives aimed at the United States—I’d ask you dear reader to take some time and watch this Alex Jones broadcast shown below. Jones is a little too emotional for me, and reactive—but he cares about what his group investigates. His Infowars group does a lot of good reporting digging too deeply into things sometimes, but that’s better than the alternative. For instance, in the report below, Alex Jones gets the new Mad Max film wrong. All the men do not die at the end and Fury Road is not a feminist film designed to destroy male leads in motion pictures. But most of the rest of what is reported below is good, and better than what is being offered on the nightly news. Watching this report puts on the table just how much is going on today, which exceeds what most people can or are willing to deal with. It is in this climate that Americans must make decisions about the ISIS terrorist situation in the Middle East.

ISIS continues to terrorize the world with threats while destroying extremely valuable archaeology in the Iraq region essentially unhindered by any reminder of justice. For perspective, the troop numbers for ISIS consist of somewhere between 50,000 hardened radicals with an additional 150,000 boot lickers. That essentially is the size of a crowd at a typical professional football game in America. That’s not very many people—yet the militaries of the world have not been able to stop ISIS in any real way. Why is that? A real concentrated military campaign by Zimbabwe should be able to handle 50,000 nutcases—yet even the United States has not been able to stop their military advancements.

That means the governments of the world are behind the ISIS radicalism and the media involved is in the business of making the Islamic radicals appear to be larger than they really are to spread the theocracy that they are advocating. The reason is to support the Vico cycle for which we are all on, using the chaos of anarchy to advance the world to a new social cycle of theocratic origins for which government control is aligned. A people who easily worship a maniacal deity is likely to also worship the mediators in government who offer keys to the kingdom of the everlasting, which is what government fantasizes is their role in human affairs. Using fear and turmoil to advance a theocracy built on collectivism, the global governments hope to unite under a big tent of United Nations advocacy. ISIS in this case serves two objectives, first it provides a common enemy the world can hate, and two it advances a theocratic notion of human management. By attacking directly the Christian faith, the world might unite under Islamic influence in reaction to the spread of a Middle Eastern caliphate. So nations are sitting on the fence and essentially letting a stadium full of radicals turn the world toward self-destruction.

If the United States wanted to, ISIS could be ended in about a week of truly diligent effort. America has the tools to do so and there are easily enough Americans who would be willing to fly over to the Middle East and engage directly one for one the ISIS radicals. But the government will not get behind the effort because they obviously want the strategic implications of the terrorist organization to manifest to full maturity—which is the end game of a resetting of the Vico cycle.

The situation can be very confusing if taken through the prism of all the news stories hitting Americans at the same time. But even that is by strategic design. By overloading the American people with critical news events, there is no emotional capacity to deal with the ISIS issue—there is no will to unite behind ending the problem so long as it stays far away in the Middle East—while the caliphate around the Mediterranean forms around the collapse of the Greek economy, soiled deals between Turkey and Russia and the European Union holds on for dear life from being sucked down the drain as a failure. Northern Africa is falling toward radical Muslim influence as two of the major dictators from Egypt and Libya have been removed in favor of a subtle communist insurrection led by the Muslim Brotherhood, and we have on our hands a global crisis. All this is happening while China pushes the limits in the South China Sea threatening Japan and American interests. Meanwhile as seen in the Infowars report the same communist insurgents behind the Muslim Brotherhood are making their moves in minority communities in the United States such as in the Cleveland riots challenging regional police forces and pushing for a DOJ controlled national force—essentially nationalizing the police in America as a military unit controlled by the central government. Can you smell what’s cooking in the kitchen dear reader?

There is a lot of money to be made from emerging markets as old strongholds in America and Europe topple and investments made throughout Africa, Russia and China emerge through the current geopolitical turbulence. If money is followed as to who has withdrawn their financial support from those old markets and invested in the new, the instigators behind the ISIS terrorism will begin to be clear. It is then that the answer to the question would be answered if anybody dared to look. But fear of hit squads and being politically ostracized through financial support prevents such inquiries, so a continued insurrection of a stadium full of insurgents will continue to rule the hearts and minds of the world against common sense. There is nothing rational about the entire ISIS problem. And there is nothing religious about its continued perpetuation. It essentially all comes down to money.

For the communists at the heart of all these insurrections they also win by painting the extreme rich as evil capitalists who are instigating all these events from the comfort of their poolside phones. Capitalism will take the blame when it is not capitalism at work behind these wealthy radicals, but the evil brand of cronyism. Wealth under cronyism uses the political process to eliminate competition and protect their investments not through vibrant competition, but by cheating using greasy politicians to run cover in destroying emerging markets to hedge their bets in a lazy way through economic tampering. The villains of our society make billionaires look like the bad guys causing the clueless to clamor to communism for fairness—but what they don’t know is that this was all part of the strategy from the beginning. The entire escapade, the communists behind the riots in Cleveland, the ISIS terrorists, the collapse of the European Union and the transfer of wealth from superpowers to developing countries all point to a singularity of cronyism advocated in a direct way to demonize capitalism and force the youth of the world toward an embrace of communism.

If Americans were allowed to solve the ISIS problem it would quickly. But America is being deliberately held back from resolving the problem through political indecision and slack-jawed cronyism to evoke a reset of the Vico cycle. The end game is a unification of the world behind the theocratic desires of a class of global citizens who want to rule the world. It’s as diabolical of a plot as a typical James Bond film—but in this case it’s real and lacking the beautiful women or cool gadgets of “Q”. So to answer Bill O’Reilly who asked this very question about why America doesn’t just kick the crap out of 50,000 ISIS radicals—it’s because all the facts of the case have been hidden from view and therefore proper assessment of field reporting. The situation is far bigger than a regional ISIS problem, it’s a global chess move toward something else entirely using the pawns of radicalism to advance a theocracy in favor of global domination—and it all starts with 50,000 murderous nut cases hailed by villains as heroes of a New World Order. To that extent, Alex Jones is not overstating the end game. It’s only that such a realization is too painful to accept. But it is a grim reality revealed all too clearly by the inaction of the United States and the world in general, against ISIS.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Thank God for an American Gun Company in Springfield MA: The .500 Magnum, the most powerful production handgun in the world

When I cover for Matt Clark’s radio show on WAAM in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Saturday June 13^th I plan to play an old T.G. Sheppard song he did with Clint Eastwood called, “Make My Day.” The song is a country song done after the success of the Dirty Harry film Sudden Impact as a tribute to that classic cop drama featuring the .44 magnum from Smith & Wesson. The song itself is a fun romp through common sense as seen from behind the trigger of a gun owner. Since I first heard that song shortly after watching Sudden Impact as a very young man, I have been in love with the company of Smith & Wesson. It has always represented to me a classic American company full of patriotism. The factory itself is located in the middle of an extremely liberal part of the country that is heavily dominated by labor union mentality and progressive politics. But Smith & Wesson has maintained itself as a dominant player in the firearms manufacturing world stage from its Springfield, MA factory off Roosevelt Ave for a long time and is a testament to the ingenuity of American resiliency. Firearms and aviation are still global manufacturing fields that are specifically dominated by American methods making the Smith & Wesson factory to me one of the most sentimental acts of patriotism available today.

It was largely that sense of sentimental patriotism that made me want to have the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum. There was a lot of controversy when S&W released their Model 29 Dirty Harry gun when it was declared then that it was the most powerful handgun in the world by Clint Eastwood himself at the start of Magnum Force.

There were other handguns that were more powerful and it became well-known that S&W were overstating the power of their .44 magnum Model 29. Sure it was a powerful gun, but it wasn’t the most powerful. Regardless, Model 29 sales soared throughout the 70s into the early 90s when progressives launched a full-out attack during the Clinton years against guns and their manufactures. Clint Eastwood turned to more serious films and never returned to Dirty Harry after the film the Dead Pool in 1988 leaving the S&W Model 29 hanging a bit in a changing marketplace.

Instead of turning tail and running for history the tenacious engineers at S&W went back to the drawing board looking to officially become the most powerful handgun in the world—this time for real, not just in movie reference. That’s when they came up with the X-frame revolver series which produced the .460 Magnum and the massive .500 Magnum. With that .500 Magnum S&W had officially become the most powerful production handgun in the entire world, and because of the patented X-frame design, it will hold that title for a number of years.

It is for this reason that I had to have one. It wasn’t just to own the most powerful production handgun in the world; it was to reward S&W for standing the test of time, competition, and politics to emerge with such a massive personal firearm which clearly went against the grain of social pressure. I respect S&W immensely for holding firm against the tide of progressivism that surrounds their facility in Massachusetts. In a lot of ways they represent the kind of pressures going on all across the nation and world in general. Instead of backing off and tucking their tale to hide, they went to the drawing board and invented something that was unequivocally the most powerful and dominate handgun around. In a lot of ways it’s a lesson for how we should all handle the pressures of progressivism.

That’s certainly not to say that we should go out and shoot anybody. When I brought the .500 Magnum out for the first time around a lot of seasoned shooters over the Memorial Day weekend, there weren’t too many who wanted to fire it. The sheer size and power of it is extremely intimidating. Most were happy to just look at it in the case I brought it in. I had brought along $200 of ammunition just for that gun, and there still weren’t many who wanted to fire it outside of my son-in-law, and myself. Its one of those things that is a deterrent to improper behavior just in knowing that it exists, and in a lot of ways it represents the resiliency of Smith & Wesson as a company serving as a kind of last stand of classic value in a land of progressive erosion. My brother-in-law shot the gun into a nearby river and when a geyser erupted in the wake of the bullet scattering water in multiple trajectories as though hit by cannon fire, he declared, “Holy shit………..I’m good for life.” That is the kind of punch the Smith & Wesson announced to the world with their determined effort to product Model X revolvers while the rest of the world was going softer, smaller, and more Brady Bill friendly.

The song “Make My Day” embodies that same S&W tenaciousness, and is what most of us feel now that we are backed up against the wall by a progressive infusion into the national media. It’s why I still love that song and the S&W company after all these years—and is why I’m going to use it as an intro to the radio segment I plan to do for that particular half hour. It’s a metaphor for what we all have to do in America and the kind of attitude it takes to get there.

The theme of the song and the reason that out of all the cop dramas that have come out over the last four decades, Dirty Harry is still popular. The power of the .44 magnum from Smith & Wesson gave the Clint Eastwood character the assurance that no matter what kind of firepower he faced from the bad guys, he could out-gun them. Smith & Wesson to assure to their customers that they could always have that same type of personal assurance offered up the .500 Magnum for that very reason. Like the song brings to light, whether it’s a motorcycle gang, a collection of thugs, goons or punks who hide out in the night, Smith & Wesson provides their customers the assurance that they don’t have to be concerned with threats to their personal sanctity. That after all is the key to the American system of government and economics. Groups, no matter what their background whether it is an officially sanctioned government or a group of criminals desire to use fear to control individuals. When someone possesses the most powerful production handgun in the world it buys the assurance that no matter what a group tries to do to inflict fear on individuals, which the owner of such a gun doesn’t have to be afraid of anything. It is when individuals are forced to deal with each other on equal footing that a respectful culture of Americans emerges. Peace through superior firepower in the hands of good people.

Among gun owners it is found some of the best people functioning in the world today. Recently my same son-in-law who shot my new .500 Magnum visited his family in Great Britain who were shocked that he and my daughter had so many guns. In England it was appalling that anybody could own a personal firearm. My kids drove the point home by stating that guns are so prevalent in American culture that they had matching his and her 9mm semi-automatic pistols. That prospect was astonishing to the English family members who were functioning from a totally different culture. It is that kind of mentality that progressives here in America are trying to breed into our culture and currently surround the Smith & Wesson factory in Massachusetts. But the biggest difference between American society and everyone else is really the number of guns available to individuals. With so many guns come secure investments and limited government to abuse their power on helpless individuals. That is the point of the “Make My Day” song; it suggested that Dirty Harry actually looked forward to righting wrongs because he had such a powerful handgun in the .44 magnum. Because he was prepared, he looked forward to using it and didn’t have to live his life apprehensive as to what might come next.

In a lot of ways I have to thank Smith & Wesson for sticking around and fighting it out all these years. They answered much criticism to their product line by offering truly the most powerful production handgun in the world and to reward that tenacity—I bought one. To me it is a marvel of modern engineering achievement that is the backbone of the American system of government. Those who are against that American system are those who want to put the gun manufacturers out of business so that the firearm culture in the United States might abate. But that’s not going to happen, and now that I’ve given myself a taste of such a powerful gun in the .500 Magnum, I have a reiteration of a whole new category of Adam Smith philosophy to dust off and shout to the world. But before I do that I’ll give WAAM listeners a treat to what started it all for me, an old T.G. Sheppard song from a famous Clint Eastwood film that defined more than a cop drama to a Hollywood industry offering a story they thought would come and go without much memory. It was Smith & Wesson who was a silent credit in that film which defined for America a subtle key to its global success. When it comes to American success and self defense—the bigger the better—and because of S&W customers can legitimately get the biggest and best that a human hand can hold defending capitalism with all the self-assurance of Harry Callahan. There’s nothing wrong with that. As it says in the song, “It was Smith & Wesson that taught them a lesson, Go Ahead, Make My Day.” Obtaining my own .500 Magnum not only made my day—it made my century.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Treasures of Brownells: A gift to the American shooter

Even though I felt at the time that I had lived five lifetimes before I ever hit 20 years of age and had some college under my belt along with two yeas of gunsmithing school, that a fresh-faced kid from Southern Ohio was going to struggle financially under that chosen profession. Customers after all like seasoned veterans for that kind of work and I hadn’t been around the block much in the shooting world—not officially anyway. So as a young gunsmith in a little shed behind our home, I was getting work—but it wasn’t the type of high-priced work I’d need to care for a growing family while keeping my wife home so that she could care properly for our children. The other issue was that clients who would give me a shot as such a young face were the type of people who were in trouble with the law and did not want the older, and orthodox Federal Firearms License holders to handle their needs. I couldn’t bring those types of people around the house with a one and two-year old children running around. The other issue was that I needed more experience on the craftsmanship end. So I took my acquired skills learned through gunsmithing and took professional jobs that required frequent measurements of .001 of an inch reading micrometers and calipers so that I’d develop all the hand skills of the gunsmithing trade. Along the way I’d write books, get more involved with bullwhip work and spend another five lifetimes over the next twenty-five years getting lots, and lots of experience using many of the gunsmithing skills I had to do work for various companies. Whereas I made the money to take care of my family in lots of unusual ways my love of gunsmithing never really went away. And one of the great memories from my past during the early days of my marriage to my wife before we started a family was the constant books and catalogues from Brownells which populated our home with huge stacks of shooting literature.

My love for America was shaped during my youth by a gradual introduction to Brownells through my gunsmithing school and our frequent trips to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I loved the common sense of rural Americans who found the popular Smoky Mountain resort town such a destination of choosing. And under that culture was a love of guns, and the people at Brownells even more than the NRA loved the business side of firearms to a point that I found it easy to connect to. They are such a great organization who unselfishly taught so many neat tricks that they preserved in a way I thought greatly beneficial an aspect of American life that I could see vanishing before my eyes. Only in the gun circles of companies like Brownells was the true nature of American life being preserved in the way the Constitution always intended. The videos shown here are just a small example of how Brownells approach the business as they teach how to clean and repair a basic single action revolver. They additionally break down the care of AR-15s and SIGs with the same patient instruction and they do a lot of this for free. Also on their website is a section that offers schematics for just about every gun in production so that if you need a little sear for some obscure gun you found at a trade show, you can order it by part number and get a replacement.

When I finally bought my .500 magnum recently after many years and miles of contemplation dividing up my busy life, I took a little more time to admire the vast stock that Bass Pro Shop had to provide materials to the shooting sportsman. I told my wife that having a place like Bass Pro around would have been very helpful in my early days of gunsmithing because there was nothing like that back then. You had to go to Gatlinburg or some other exotic place to get that type of positive American atmosphere, let alone the unequivocal support. But I also told her that Bass Pro had good stuff on their shelves, but that they were no Brownells. That’s when I realized that I hadn’t visited their site since I stopped performing gunsmithing, so I pulled them up on my iPad and reconnected with an old friend.

I was so happy to see that Brownells was still going strong. They still offer their gigantic full color catalogue which was very expensive back in 1989—it must be ungodly today—but they still ship them to their customers. They offer hundreds of how-to videos on YouTube completely free of charge and have that same American enthusiasm for the shooting profession they have always been known for, which was a relief. So it didn’t take me long to reconnect with them after two decades. As foreign as it sounds, a few decades can get away from you if you don’t watch your time carefully. I am very selfish with my time because I always have so much going on. Shooting was only a part of my life, so when you get busy with other things like philosophy, politics, legalisms, economics, and raising a family the proper way, months and years fly by like lightning across the sky. But it’s never too late to come back to an old project which for me began with the purchase of my .500 magnum from Smith and Wesson.

Another thing that came up when I was younger was the stigma of shooting. I certainly felt it during the late 80s into 90s as the Clinton administration looked like it would be successful in banning military style firearms after the Brady Bill. I didn’t know at the time if the shooting profession itself was going to be banned all together—it looked that way at the time. I wasn’t sure how long a company like Brownells would be able to continue doing what they were doing. When it comes to gunsmithing, they are the primary supplier. They are the backbone to keeping the shooting industry humming along. As progressive political activists like George Soros attempt to buy up American gun manufacturers to strategically end the supply of guns in America to private residence, it is the many years of commitment to building a client base of gunsmiths all across the United States that will ensure that shooting never dies out in the only free nation on earth—at least free in principle. So long as there is a Brownells, there is a gunsmith somewhere who can build a gun from scratch. Gun manufacturers are not necessarily needed. But gunsmiths are—and because of Brownells, there are still a healthy number of them around who can keep the sport alive.

It’s easy to forget what America was always supposed to be when you watch the nightly news and read from its newspapers—particularly those from New York and Los Angeles. But America is quite alive and well in the stores of Bass Pro and the pages of Brownells. Of that later, Brownells is in a class by itself, and if you are a shooter, it would be a good idea to know who and what they are. They are a tremendous resource for the modern American shooter—which is a unique company specific to the United States. You won’t find an equivalent company anywhere else in the world. Sweden can make tables and chairs for their IKEA stores, Germans can make their cars, France can breed women with unshaved armpits, and the Chinese can continue to make the stuff that Americans want to buy at Wal-Mart but there is nothing like a Brownells in Mexico, Brazil or Australia. They are specific to the culture of Americana that we all know and love and are the backbone of our lifestyle of freedom.

My return back to my roots is the awareness that strategically progressive activists have sought to end businesses like Brownells and its customer base. After what I’ve learned in all the other aspects of my life which has filled these pages with so much color and candor is that the best way to defeat that strategy is with an unapologetic embrace of the American art of shooting and caring for our guns. And when it comes to caring for guns, Brownells as a company are the experts. A look through their catalogue is enough to make a grown man weep. There has never been a better collection of tools and gadgets anywhere between the covers of a big catalog. Brownells does everything right and are a treasure from my past that I am happy to see just as strong today as they were then. Brownells is the blood behind the body of the shooting profession. They are what helps keep an interest in the NRA and other shooting organizations so robust, because Brownells keeps guns working and passed down from one generation to another constantly building a client base that has not be snuffed out by activists hell-bent on making America into a restricted nation like Europe. Brownells keeps the gunsmithing profession alive and is the best source out there for keeping those family treasures functioning and robust. And if you didn’t know about them dear reader, well, now you do.

http://www.brownells.com/

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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The American Gun: Remembering Adam Smith and the heroes of westward expansion

It does not escape me; especially when I travel or experience cultures abroad that the cultures mostly seem proud of their histories. Of course the Japanese are proud of the samurai culture which is obvious in their business dealings. Australians are proud of their outback ruggedness, the English of their Empire, the French of their topless beaches, wine and ability to throw down a rifle at the first sign of trouble thinking that Napoleon’s empire was enough to show they had testicular fortitude for the next millennia. Only in America do we find this notion that we should forget our past and reject our historical figures. Like the samurai America had a period of valiant heroes and desperate villains that were exacerbated during the period of time referred to as the Old West. Unlike the samurai warriors of old the Wild West characters exemplified by this period were driven to their glory by guns instead of a sword, and allowed for what may be the first time in all of human history a true path toward individual achievement. The samurai had some of the same noble tendencies as a typical Wild West gunfighter, but the Japanese warrior was usually bound in service to some noble land owner—whereas the cowboy was pursing their own unique life. That is the dramatic difference.

The moment that a few rival motorcycle gangs in Texas fired shots at each other the national American media jumped all over the story personifying the incident as a shoot-out in the Old West hoping to throw logs on the fire of further gun restrictions to prevent the violence. Progressives especially refer to the Old West as if our society had “moved on” beyond such primal achievements. Then once an Amtrak train jumped off the tracks in New Jersey for some unknown reason they filled the airwaves and print media with demands for more tax dollars for such an ancient means of transportation—that was ironically invented during the Old West and the expansion across the New World to the opposite ocean. We’re supposed to feel guilty that the Gold Rush brought out too much greed to mankind, that the saloons across the new nation were filled with gamblers and prostitutes and that the streets were often bathed in blood from so many human beings carrying around personal firearms. We have been told by progressives that our society today is much better because of rules they made and that if only we listened to them, we might someday be more like Europe is today. To accomplish this we are supposed to forget our heroes of the American West, give up our guns, our music, and our culture as if it never was—and that is a mistake of epic proportions.

I remember some of the stunned poetry of William Blake—whom many believed was part of the Illuminati movement that was taking place in America during his young years into the early period that would become the Wild West. By the time there was an American Constitution he was in his mid-thirties and as a painter and poet watched as the New World throw off the chains of a kingly society for the first time in history. There was no “leader” in America—no King Louis, Edward, or Henry and this was extremely unusual to the world stage. In America people made their own way. They were free to pursue their own dreams at risk of peril or plunder and as a result New York City rose up to rival Paris and London in just s few short years. The world was shocked and the bloodshed was considerably less than all the battles between England, Spain and France during the previous centuries. The story goes that the Bavarian Illuminati was the shadow government of the United States working to bring the Scottish Rite to public acceptance through backdoor means to overthrow the grip kings had on the world. In this way “illuminated” individuals could rise up to their own levels of competency without having to suck up to a king in order to achieve success. Blake watched as this experiment blossomed into an extraordinary success which led directly to the freeing of slaves to the invention of the most powerful economy the world had ever seen. And for that the progressives want to erase the memory.

For many the Old West was a hard place. It might have led to direct conflict with Indians, with some despot in a bar over a card game, or dying of ill-health while panning for gold. But, for the first time in human history if a man wanted to make their way in the world to wealth, they could grab a horse, a gun, and head for the horizon to make a life anyway they saw fit. This would be a byproduct of the capitalism invented by Adam Smith as he envisioned the invisible hand of enlightened self-interest in his great book, An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. That enlightened self-interest would give rise to heroes like Davy Crockett, Wyatt Earp, Kit Carson, and Wild Bill Hickok. It would also give rise to villains like Jessie James, Black Bart and many other railroad tycoons who would attempt to manipulate this new-found capitalism into something like the cronyism of old Europe. But at the center of all this new-found individual independence was the gun which equaled out the big and strong from the weak and soft spirited. Bill O’Reilly’s recent series Legends and Lie deals specifically with this period of western heroes and villains very well.

Progressives despise the Old West and seek at every turn to erase it from history’s memory—and with that the American gunfighter mythology. The reason is that the gun embodies the utilization of westward expansion when mankind for the first time in history had gained individual mobility that gave rise to an economy the world envied terribly. Yet to Americans the gun culture is every bit as important as the samurai sword is to the Japanese or a fortune cookie is to the Chinese. The gun is the symbol in America of individual will and the ability to pursue it to advance the enlightened self-interest of enterprising human beings. This gave rise to new money like the Rockefellers and J.P. Morgan and gave opportunity to inventors like Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison. The gun and violence of the Old West paved the way for the great inventions of the 20^th Century—and without those inventions; mankind would still be in horse and buggies enslaved to kings, queens and stuffy nobility. In America a new kind of economic freedom had emerged and it was driven forth by the gun—which is our history and source of pride.

Nobody ever said that the American West was perfect—or that innocent people were not killed. The times of the samurai were not free of sadness and the Chinese certainly had their fair share of tragedy after being ruled by the Mongols then the subsequent Dynasties of emperors starting with the Yuan. Yet, history remembers those times fondly in their cultures as pictures of ancient heroes litter their artwork. In those cultures the people embrace their past even with all the sorrow left in the wake. In America we are told to run away from history and invent something new—which is really a trick. We are told by modern progressives to run away from Adam Smith and into the arms of Karl Marx and the philosophers of Europe. We are told to give up our guns and independence so that we can be ruled once again by kings and nobility. Those who know history of course avoid that fate. Those who don’t are falling for the trap and future aggression is brewing because of it. But there should never be an ounce of shame regarding the American West or its expansion. For every memory of detriment was a blooming flower of opportunity for somebody who otherwise wouldn’t have had it—and the means for achieving such a feat was the American gun. America became what it did in such a short time not because of any particular president, or any corporation—but because of the enlightened self-interest of Adam Smith’s economic theory and the American guns which preserved that right in the wild days of westward expansion. While it’s true that many people suffered, many more lived for the first time a fate of their own design. And for that we should always remember with great fondness the heritage of our Wild West and the cowboys who experimented for the first time with capitalism as free from government and pinheaded nobility as any human beings under the flag of a new country had ever conceived. And for America it worked and should be copied across the entire world—starting with a reverence for the gun in all its glory.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Dr. Nafziger Calls for Resignation of Judy Shelton: Video of fights between good Republicans and bad Republicans

There is nothing worse than a bully. I personally have no sympathy for any bully whether it be a motorcycle gang member, a labor union thug, or a 73-year-old woman trying to hold on to power to protect her out-dated world outlook. Bullies in all categories are bad and a threat to the American republic because such a political system requires a self-confident, intelligent population that participates as honestly in the election process as possible. But in Butler Country, Ohio there are a number of bullies operating within the political system of the GOP that prevent the kind of positive growth that is needed as market demographics change and new priorities face future voters. This is a story regarding the latter type of bully which insists that people vote not based on intelligence or free thought—but fear of compliance. In this case the Central Committee Chairperson for Butler County who has been involved in a lot of questionable actions over the last few years was the aggressor. Specifically of these strategic impositions would be the public and private actions against David Kern to push him out of being head of the Republican Party since he represented the Tea Party faction after the 2012 election. Another was throwing Ann Becker out of a John Kasich rally because she wanted to ask questions about Common Core, this was done by Todd Hall, but represented the anti-Tea Party position of this chairperson. Then there was last year’s ruckus involving Evan Thomas. There is a history between good Republicans and bad Republicans which indicated that some sort of quarrel would break out during a May 18^th 2015 meeting which will be explained in detail during the subsequent paragraphs. In this article good Republicans would be defined by Constitutional purists against the machine politics of old who seek to build personal alliances through politics to secure business interests. George Nafziger wanted to warn voters at the May meeting of the chairperson’s strategy at that meeting so he was passing out a flyer explaining the activity—also shown below. He knew that the chairperson had been involved in a lot of behind the scenes arm-twisting and anticipated that he would be harassed in a similar way. So he turned on his camera and let it run—which recorded the following. What you are about to see is how politics works in Butler County, Ohio from behind the veil of the Central Committee.

Many voters don’t understand how the Central Committee portion of politics work so it would be helpful to have an explanation as George explained it to me during his report of the recent meeting happenings. Every county in Ohio is divided into a varying number of precincts, each containing a given number of voters. The Republican and Democrat Parties both have an elected “precinct member” representing their interests in that precinct. These precinct members [ward captains if you prefer] run for office and are elected in the spring primary. They literally run a campaign and present their political philosophy just like candidates running for Congress, etc., and the individual who most represents his precinct wins by gaining the highest vote count.

Their function is to keep their constituents informed of party and political issues, to get out the vote in the November elections, and to vote in party meetings to endorse or not to endorse a candidate for the primary elections.

These precinct members form what is called the “central committee.” There is also an “executive committee.” In most of Ohio’s counties the Executive Committee is little more than a rump group of the Central Committee who handle the daily functions of the party and run party meetings. It includes individuals who hold elective office in the county, i.e. sheriff, commissioner, etc.

However, in Butler County this Executive Committee grew into a major body in the party totaling 85% of the number of the members of the Central Committee. Some are appointed by the Central Committee Chair to assist in their party operations. However, the rest literally buy their way into the party functions by paying a fee of $150 and being voted, en masse, by the Central Committee.

For this $150 they get to vote on the endorsement of candidates for office, so they have bought a seat at the table and directly influence the public’s choices in the November elections.

The Central Committee Chairperson, in conjunction with the Policy Committee, develops the list of the Executive Committee members and submits it to the Central Committee for approval. There is rarely any discussion about individuals on the list and generally the Central Committee membership is asked to vote blindly on the names presented to them.

The process for developing the Executive Committee list has evolved over the years and recently it was changed so that a very small clique totally controlled the names that were put on that list. This provoked a revolt among the members of the Butler County Central Committee in the May 2014 organizational meeting. Because of the resulting chaos, the meeting was cut short and the Executive Committee was not established.

The chaos included an incident reported in the Hamilton Journal where a sergeant-at-arms, appointed by Mrs. Judy Shelton, the Central Chairperson, threatened a Central Committee member with physical violence for voicing his objection to the actions taken by the chairperson in this meeting.

Three months earlier, at the January 2014 candidate endorsement meeting the Executive Committee was manipulated by this clique so as to insure their chosen candidates would win the party’s endorsement. In Butler County the endorsed Republican candidate, by winning the party endorsement, has essentially won the general election in November. The vote in November has been reduced to a formality.

In this manipulation, a bus was rented and Executive Committee members, who would otherwise not have come to the meeting, were brought to the meeting, it was rumored, after being fed a free dinner and told for whom they were to vote. Their votes were essentially bought for the cost of a dinner and a bus ride. The bus was parked in front of the meeting hall. As to the contents of the dinner, it could only be confirmed by those attending.

Because of this and other issues many central committee members resolved to block the re-establishment of the Executive Committee.

A Regional Meeting of Central Committee members was held on April 28^th, in which it became clear that Mrs. Shelton, the Central Chairperson, essentially said that the Executive Committee was being purged of those people who did not vote for her chosen candidates.

In May 2015 a meeting was called to re-establish the Executive Committee and those dissenting members moved to oppose this. One of them, Dr. George Nafziger, prepared a flyer explaining his position on the proposed list. He handed it out at the entrance to the conference room until Mrs. Judy Shelton confronted him. Dissent was not to be tolerated by the Chairperson who clearly indicated that only leadership was able to decide who received what at that meeting.

In the video made using a cell phone hanging from Dr. Nafziger’s neck during this incident it was easy to see several minutes of people greeting him and him giving them a copy of his flyer. The members in the video are all elected officials doing the work of the county. Then Mrs. Shelton confronted him, telling him that he had no right to pass out flyers representing his views on her proposed Executive Committee list. Shelton was obviously primarily concerned with exerting her authority to maintain the power position in the discussion as a way to quell any thoughts of un-unified discussion—as a party. This is the key to the problem; Shelton desires to unify the Republican Party behind the type of interests represented by her, which is centered on real estate development, and various ways to merge business with politics—essentially the old Carlos Todd approach to Butler County politics of which John Boehner is a direct product. That is clearly her motivation as indicated by her approach and dialogue. You will also see her threaten him with an expulsion by a police officer. His efforts to speak for the people he was elected to represent was shut down by the Republican Party Central Committee Chairman, Mrs. Judy Shelton for the purpose of preserving party unity which keeps her, and her affiliates in power—which is clearly not how any type of republic in the United States was supposed to ever function.

As Dr. Nafziger left the room and moved down a hallway, he passed out his flyers to the Central Committee members waiting to register for the meeting. Mrs. Shelton followed him, shoving him, and grabbing his flyers from the hands of the other central committee members. You can hear Dr. Nafziger repeatedly tell her to stop pushing him as she attempted to take the edge off by laughing to ease the crowd gathered. The law was present, including Butler Country’s top cop, Sheriff Jones, and allowed the behavior to continue as though this type of thing had become acceptable over the years. Likely there is a belief that the courts would line up behind Shelton’s actions and that she had become something larger than the law itself as defined by the election of resident representatives.

This is the material George was passing out, which provoked so much of a public insult.

CONSIDER VOTING NO

Do you think your neighbors elected you because they did not know you? No!

Do you know the qualifications of all or even most of those on whom you will be voting tonight? No!

Do you want your future votes for candidate endorsements to be diluted by the votes of people you do not know? No!

Are you willing to be a rubber stamp for someone else’s handpicked friends? No!

Do you know that the reasons to have these appointees are 1.) $150 in annual dues and 2.) their guaranteed vote in support of those who screened and selected them? No!

Do you know that the list before you was purged of names who voted their minds and not as they were told to vote? No!

Do you think your neighbors, who elected you, want your vote cancelled by people over whose selection you had no voice? No!

Should we risk giving control of our Party to people who were carefully screened and culled by a select few and do not represent the interests of the elected precinct members? No!

Recalling the May 2014 meeting, do you want to see these proposed members voting as they are told to vote by those who put them on the list before us tonight? No!

Do you know that the elimination of six of the seven regions has resulted in a situation where the vote of the Regional Chair we selected will always be overridden by the Executive and Central Chairs, who handpicked this list? No!
You took an oath of office to serve the interests of your neighbors. Do you think that a vote in favor of this list serves their interests? No!

Do not throw away the rights and duties entrusted to you by your neighbors who elected you to office. A vote in favor of this list of proposed members of the Executive Committee will negate your vote. The health and success of our Party depends on your vote tonight.

Immediately after this event George contacted me with the following note letting me know of the incident and looking for some way to tell his story knowing that most of the usual media contacts were loyally committed to the established politics striving to hold power against Tea Party insurgents. I have in my possession a rather damning audio clip that further indicates the level of animosity that Chairman Shelton has toward Tea Party members of the Republican Party–however, that audio was recorded during a private GOP event that was intended to stay that way. I’m not sure at this time that I will release it, unless needed. Given the nature of this audio recording which implicates many people I call friends, then hearing George’s story, it was quite obvious that we were dealing with serious bullies in the GOP that deserved exposure. I’m not going to allow that kind of thing in my backyard without saying something about it. So here is George’s letter to me as he wrote it.

Because of the threat of violence last year by a member of the party leadership against Evan Thomas I decided that I should have a written flyer to pass out to express my opinion on the proposed list of people to be elected to the Executive Committee. I also decided that I should record what happened while I was passing it out. If I have enough band on my e-mail, I’ll attach the video recording of what transpired. I will also attach two of the flyers that were circulating and which I was passing out.

As you will see in the video, Judy Shelton, the party central chairman, threw me out of the hall before the meeting began because she objected to my flyer. She manhandled me as you will hear and not being willing to strike or push back at a woman I went, but she was constantly shoving me. As I passed down the hall I passed out further flyers, which she grabbed from people’s hands. The video will give you the rest.

When the meeting began it was badly managed. Shelton even had to be reminded to get a vote to approve the agenda. She was eager to rush into the vote for the central and executive membership, which were the principal reasons for the meeting.

She then went into an harangue about the two lists of people to be voted on this evening: 1.) people to be appointed to vacancies in the central committee, and 2.) a re-established executive committee.

The vote for replacements to the central committee went fairly smoothly, however there was great opposition to the re-establishment of the executive committee.

A dozen people got up and spoke about it. Most of the speakers were opposed and Shelton had to ask for people to rebut some of the arguments. There were few takers.

The principal arguments against it were:

1.)        It diluted the votes of the elected central committee members in the all-important endorsement votes. References were made to busing people in as was done in the January 2013 endorsement meeting. Comments were made as to how there was manipulation of the system, using the Executive Committee to give Shelton’s personally preferred candidates an edge in the endorsement process. You can confirm that with Roger Reynolds and Judge Oster as they were the targets of this (as was I) in the January 2014 meeting.

2.)        Shelton claimed these people were selected because they were “workers” but attendance records were brought out and used as an indication of “workers” in the executive committee were not workers. Of 106 attendance records 80 of these “workers” attended less than 60% of the party meetings. The point being if you can’t attend meetings, then odds are you won’t do much work.

3.)        It was argued that as the central committee members were elected by the residents of their precincts after they displayed their political philosophy, then they should not “sell their votes for $150”, which is the cost of being a member of the Executive Committee.

Shelton spent most of her time rebutting these arguments. It was also interesting to note that she complained that people had not turned out for the Lincoln Day Dinner/fund-raiser. The reason for that was her management of the party’s affairs and the lack of support she has after the May 2014 party meeting.

Anyway, when the motion to vote for the proposed executive committee went to the floor and the voting was to begin there was a motion to “divide the house.” This means that the precinct members literally have to move to one side of the floor or the other to show their support of a position. This is done to prevent voice votes from being deliberately misinterpreted by the chair.

That process was initially chaotic, but settled down after much confusion and some recounts.

The precinct members (central committee members) literally lined up on the walls of opposite sides of the room. The count was redone 3-4 times and the final result was that 57 voted against the proposed executive committee and 56 voted for it. One precinct member changed his vote during the course of this chaos and threw the vote to the “No Executive Committee” position.

There had earlier been a call for a secret ballot, but Shelton had told the woman who made that proposal that she would not allow it. However, after the house divided and the 57-56 vote came in, suddenly Shelton wanted a secret ballot. The membership shouted her down.

And that is what happened tonight.

George Nafziger

As a result of this incident Dr. Nafziger is planning to ask for Mrs. Shelton to be removed from her chairman seat. It is quite obvious that she is more interested in unifying the Republican Party around the type of machine politics that has left the party stagnant and ineffective in the past. For instance, if John Boehner is truly the best man for the job as congressman, then he should have no problem surviving the primary process provoked from healthy debate. But when it’s wondered how people like Boehner, who are obviously political moderates combating radical leftists in Washington—of which many think he’s losing—keep their jobs for decades as congressman, now you know. The reason is because they have people like chairman Shelton doing the dirty work of suppressing opinion for them out of sight from the media or the public in these central committee meetings.

As far as people go I like most Republicans. I have a bit of history with Todd Hall and I like him. I would probably get along fine with Judy Shelton when talking about our dislike of Obama. When talking about our resistance to legalized drugs in Ohio Sheriff Jones and I share a lot of common ground. He’s against it and so am I in a huge way. Relative to the rest of the world, we have more in common than not. But, in relation to the purity of how a republic is supposed to function in the United States they represent the bad Republicans whereas George represents the good. The good doctor isn’t such because I personally like him—which I do—but because he represents at great scrutiny the purity of how a constitutional republic is supposed to function. Competition is good—and the Republican Party would be stronger if it had a lot more competition, and a lot less thuggish behavior on behalf of party leaders seeking consensus more than theatrical criticism.

The Republican Party does not belong to Judy Shelton or anybody else. Because of her actions and desire to bend the shape of the party toward her personal predilections, she needs to be removed, as Dr. Nafziger has now made a motion to implement. The Tea Party is not a regional thing that is up to her to crush so that she can be a hero to the machine politics of old. It is a national movement created in opposition largely because of people like her controlling central committees at all levels of the GOP and preserving flat candidates for the last hundred years allowing the more socially radical progressives to move the social meter away from conservatism more to the political left. George isn’t involved in all this so he can sell another house or streamline a project through a zoning hearing. He really cares about the GOP and at the very least; Shelton has an obligation to give the voters of his district a voice in government. Even if she disagrees with him, she should at least respect the process enough to let the best and brightest ideas have their day in the court of public opinion. Instead she openly sought to suppress that voice and she got caught doing it on video. That is why she should be immediately removed from office in favor of a chairman who will respect the Republic and give a proper voice to the GOP in Butler County for the better. Competition should be what determines who holds what office and for how long. People like Shelton should not allow the mediocre to stay in office by protecting them from warranted criticism. That is why Dr. Nafziger has urged her removal from the chairman seat of the Butler Country Central Committee. And that is also why if she cared an ounce for the GOP, she would do it on her own without further provocation.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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The Bankruptcy of Chicago: I told you so two years ago

Lets see, two years ago when I was talking about the need to control the Lakota levy in my home town of Liberty Township, Ohio I did a warning video shown below where I emphasized voter management to avoid the kind of diabolical situation that takes place on the macro scale in places like Detroit and Chicago. Detroit filed bankruptcy and I said in that video that Chicago was about two years away from the same fate. Of course people thought that I overstated the problem and was speaking as a right-winged pundit dramatizing the situation for political gain. Well, it’s been nearly two years and Chicago is exactly where I said it would be. Here’s the video as it was presented.

Chicago under progressive Obama friend Rahm Emanuel made a deal with the striking teacher’s union a few years back that has now caught up to the city. Municipal bonds within Chicago have been downgraded by Moody’s to a “junk” status which is a nail in the coffin leaving nowhere to run for the third largest city in America filled with progressive policies that have bankrupted it. It is a failed society and has avoided showing that failure with debt spending. America as a nation is on the same path, but the overload hasn’t quite caught up to Washington yet. In Chicago that happened a long time ago, and once the teacher’s union in Chicago had a major strike that Emanuel settled with appeasement it toppled any hope of austerity to recover years of overspending. Public employees pensions are so underfunded that the shortfall is nearly equal six times the annual budget for the entire city. It’s quadruple what it was only a decade ago which works out to $60,000 per Chicago household. Progessives within the city hoped for a bailout from the state. However Governor Bruce Rauner has refused to even consider such an action stating that Illinois has its own problems, and won’t be bailing out Chicago’s runaway public employee costs. So progressives are turning toward the hope of further tax increases and we all know what will happen next. To understand the enormity of this tragic situation watch all the videos included in this article. These problems will soon be at your doorstep as well no matter what part of the country you live in.

The responsible thing is to attack the parasitic nature of public sector workers in our hometowns in an aggressive fashion to avoid the problems that Chicago is currently facing. There is no way out for them, just as the Greeks are learning. Socialism doesn’t work and that is the means of economic mobility progressives utilize and believe in fervently. In communities where they have had their way for years, they have destroyed their economies. In the case of Chicago progressive supporters look around at the vibrant culture that is present, the nice mix of businesses, and the standard of living and believe that they have a progressive utopia. But that utopia was built with debt. It wasn’t legitimately created by value, and there was always an assumption that somebody would bail them out of their troubles because they were too big to fail. That bail out would likely come from the state or the federal government—or at least that’s what progressives believed.

Many feel that my criticisms of the teaching profession are unwarranted and mean-spirited. They assume that because children are involved that unlimited money should be spent on education. However there isn’t a single statistic that shows that all the money spent per pupil anywhere in America on government schooling makes subsequent generations better in any way at all. Public schools are cesspools of liberal driven social concerns more interested with programming children to become future progressives than actually intelligent members of American society. That leaves the entire value of the teaching profession to be categorized as a simple babysitting service for busy parents who may not be liberal, but are too busy to raise their own children and too poor to send their kids to a private school. That is the typical tax and spend voter who supports infinite school levies and teacher unions out-of-control regarding their financial expectations.

Public schools may have value as a baby sitting service, but they don’t have enough value to bankrupt a city, which is what’s happening in Chicago. The public unions in Chicago did not regulate themselves and kept asking for more until they ran out of money. When the money went dry they continued spending in a deficit mode until finally it was determined that they would never be able to recover financially and had their bond rating lowered to a junk status. Moody’s did them a favor by giving them plenty of time to right their ship in Chicago. The numbers were on the table a decade ago. I reported on it two years ago, and now it’s done. Chicago is bankrupt—they just haven’t gone through the formal procedure of it yet.

For years the rest of America who were not progressives were told that their way of life, their steadfast conviction to actually paying for things with cash on hand and saving up for things they didn’t have cash for avoiding debt like the plague, was a backward approach to social living. People like me were told that my cowboy hats and love of tradition were stuck in the past whereas cities in California, New York and specifically the city of Chicago were the way of the future. Of course I never bought it for a moment, because I knew better. The proud supporters of Chicago who advocated all the progressive lifestyles spent way too much time riding the coat tails of Michael Jordan and other athletes while running up bills for their massive progressive society that they could never pay in many lifetimes expecting everything somehow to magically work out in the end. Of course that is a path to destruction.

I live in an affluent area and know a lot of people with financial means. I understand what motivates them and what doesn’t—and higher taxes will guarantee that they leave for places where someone isn’t trying to dig into their pocketbook to steal the money they worked hard to make. My video was a warning to my school district not to follow the way of Detroit and Chicago and to stop the bleeding now before it’s too late. Sure those who want more tax payer money to fund their unrealistic wage expectations will be mad at me, but they aren’t the people who have to pay the bills. Those who control budgets are seldom ever liked and those who manage multiple resources are even less so—but they still have a job to do, and that job is seldom ever popular. But if that job of management is done correctly, people are better off than without it. Without management you get the trouble seen in Chicago. With management, bills get paid and society advances with a vibrant skyline. Governor Rauner is taking a page out of the Scott Walker book and doing the unpopular task of controlling costs in his state. Walker broke the code with the labor unions up in Wisconsin much to the benefit of millions of people. Illinois really has no choice but to follow the example. As far as investment dollars Chicago is only an hour south of Milwaukee so if investments are to be made in the area and taxes are too high because of out-of-control spending, then those investments will go to areas where financial management of resources is occurring, instead of the bottomless pit that is currently sucking in the famous windy city voraciously day by day.

Never let it be said that I didn’t tell everybody about what was going to happen in Chicago. And I wasn’t the only one. It should also be noted that when I put something up here for analysis, no matter how crazy it might seem at the time, that eventually time will prove it correct. Also, I have an extremely long memory, and I will bring it up in the future. The Chicago tragedy hasn’t been heavily covered on the mainstream news even though it is clearly one of the biggest tragedies in America at the moment. The liberal driven media really can’t deal with the reality of one of their treasured cities failing in such an epic way. But it is, and I’m making sure that everyone knows about it, and that the evidence was fairly easy to see on the horizon. So when it comes to other things that I am saying now—please listen. I don’t say all these things for my health. Because if I feel strongly enough to put something in print, it’s because there’s something to it.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Preparing for War in America: The way to turn the tide against enemies both foreign and domestic

I certainly wouldn’t consider myself an alarmist. I tend to underplay things in favor of analysis, so when I say or write something it comes after lots of careful consideration. By nature when dealing with observations well over the horizon of contemporary concerns, some of the reports from those unseen frontiers seem like conspiracy. But they aren’t. When Glenn Beck said during his Monday radio show referenced below, that Americans need to prepare for war, I was already thinking the same thing. In fact, it was the premier reason that I finally went out and bought my .500 magnum after many years of contemplation. When you combine the incredible mismanagement within the United States government of our finances, cultural priorities, failed education system and declining Christian conviction, it adds up to a country on the decline. Couple that with a world filled with radical extremists of all walks of life that openly want to attack the United States any way possible, and the blueprint for disaster is clearly at hand. Then to top all that off is the United Nations that wants nothing more than to see America topple as a superpower so that its aim of global socialism can then take root. It is they in the United Nations who are silently rooting for this upcoming war. We’ve talked about it here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom for years, and finally the time is upon us. As I said in a previous article the responsible thing to do for all peace-loving Americans is to go to the store and buy a gun, because when firearm sales spike up, it just might put the scare into these encroaching forces to retreat from their current plans. But a failure to act will encourage them. That failure will lead to much worse than the implication of buying a gun for personal property protection. Here’s how Glenn Beck’s The Blaze news outlet reported the issue:

Glenn Beck on Monday suggested that Americans “prepare for all-out war, war unlike we have ever seen in our lifetime.”

Beck was discussing the Iraq war on his radio program when he made the warning, saying it should have begun more aggressively, with “shock and awe” from the outset. He has long maintained that in war, one should fight to win and then come home.

“We talk about World War II, where they did shock and awe,” Beck’s co-host Stu Burguiere said. “Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of civilians died. It was not a pretty picture. And obviously war is hell, but is there any way that America — with the backbone we have today, with the 99 percenters and Occupy Wall Street as part of this country, with all that — they are going to accept a war effort like that?”

Beck said the next truly devastating terrorist attack will be perpetrated by “home-grown” terrorists, and “they will be in multiple cities, so you won’t know” what to expect next.

“Did you see what ISIS came out and said? That ISIS, their number one goal now is to hit America and kill the president. I cannot imagine. That would change perspectives entirely,” Beck remarked. “We got the Patriot Act the last time. Can you even imagine what the Department of Homeland Security would do if they, God forbid, hurt the president?”

Beck said he doesn’t know how exactly the attack would manifest itself, but he suggests that “you prepare for all-out war.”

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/05/18/glenn-beck-says-this-is-why-americans-should-prepare-for-all-out-war/

To get through this time of massive collapse not only of hopes and dreams that previous generations may have had for the future—but a literal collapse of resources available, it will take a swagger from the typical American that has not been seen since its inception. To get that swagger it helps to have a well stocked personal arsenal in each and every home. The police and military are useful for keeping the peace in this current environment, but they are collective based organizations who take orders from a failing government. So they really can’t be trusted to deal with the acts of terror that are coming both domestically and from foreign aggression. When the resources truly run out in poor sectors of a city for instance the looting of the outlining suburbs will become a lucrative target and as seen in Ferguson and Baltimore recently, the police will not be able to help and the military won’t be willing as they were in the 60s to step in. That leaves residences alone to protect themselves from enemies both foreign and domestic—which is why there is a Second Amendment in the first place.

It really would only take a few days without power for instance to set off the massive violence seen in recent movies like The Purge to unleash across society. The only thing that really keeps mankind working together is easy access to food and water. The moment those two things are gone, human beings quickly become nothing more than animals—and for those who do not want to be victims to animals, you need to protect yourself with a firearm. For instance, consider the logistical problem of making deliveries to a local store during a crises situation, such as a roving mob of radicals looking to steal whatever they can get their hands on exacerbated by a long sustained power outage. The police would be overloaded with crime breakouts everywhere and could not protect every truck delivering supplies. Carriers would likely not risk delivering to places where their drivers might be attacked, but if the area is affluent and well-protected by thousands of homes all containing firearms, where crime is lower, they are more likely to continue supplying to those areas. That is just a small way that owning a firearm is the responsible thing to do. The easy targets for such mobs will be areas where there are few firearms, particularly urban areas where only the bad buys have guns. But suburbs where there are lots of firearms would be much harder to attack just because of the sheer volume of firearms located in those regions.

I remember when Hurricane Fran knocked out power to Liberty Township, Ohio for about 4 days. I had to buy a chain saw from Tractor Supply to get fallen trees off my house. They had to make the financial exchange the old fashion way, with cash and a hand written receipt. The banks couldn’t give out any money because of the lack of power, gas stations couldn’t pump fuel, and credit card companies couldn’t do phone transactions. If I hadn’t had $600 in cash on me I wouldn’t have been able to buy the chain saw. But if that Tractor Supply store had been in an area that was not surrounded by homes with an average gun ownership of four or more, they might not have been willing to take the risk of holding all that cash in a safe until the power was restored. And they would have stopped deliveries because they couldn’t protect their inventory. That’s the benefit of gun ownership, when the grid goes down—which will be the objective all the upcoming maniacal terrorists—the best way to keep some semblance of a civilized society is to offer up your guns as protection of capitalist endeavors. Delivery of products and services is what the Second Amendment guarantees. When traveling through areas of the country where gun ownership is high, you tend to see more financial investment by entrepreneurs. Where gun ownership is low there is less. And in those areas where gun ownership is high you are more likely to see people treating each other civilly whether it is like Tractor Supply allowing cash transactions during a power outage while carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in raw cash in their vaults, or a grocery keeping deliveries coming because their client base isn’t a threat to their operations. Gun ownership is the backbone of a capitalist economy.

When terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 2001 they intended to start a chain reaction that would harm the American economy. They didn’t care about killing 3000 people, but they did want to kill the American economy and it is a sure bet that future attacks will be focused on a similar outcome. They don’t care if it is a slow death. They only care that America dies. The poor management of our current government in America whether by design or sheer ineptness has set the stage for making our economy an easy target for those who hate the United States and its capitalist endeavors seeking to put an end to our country’s sovereignty. There is no reason to think that there isn’t more attacks coming aimed directly at our very lifestyle—and most of the world is behind the effort. We have to be honest about that.

One of the reasons that Japanese society flourished so well after World War II is that their whole society was destroyed—including their rules and regulations. They were able quickly to take their samurai warrior mythological background with their collective unity and adopt American capitalism to rise to the top of the economic standard in a few short years. Enemies of America have sought for a long time to further encumber our economy more and more one rule at a time until it is so difficult to do business in America that our economy would just collapse from the sheer debt collected over time and the inability to deliver enough GDP to sustain that debt. It’s a strategy being used against us all, silently, slowly and with great patience. When the time is right, they will strike. As Beck said, a major strike now would cripple us with more branches of government, more regulations, more taxes and fees as the panic driven types who were caught mismanaging the situation attempt to throw money and resources at the issues to mask their incompetence. And even that is part of the strategy against us even now—to get the panic driven in the United States to assist the enemy with more self-imposed regulation. If there are any fantasies of holding on to your country, you better prepare for all out war. And you don’t prepare for war without guns and ammunition—not for this war that’s coming.

Over the years I tend to deal with personal threats without guns. I have a collection of melee weapons that do just fine for assailants of three or less. Nine times out of ten melee weapons are just fine for staying out of trouble while protecting assets. However in the back of my mind if the situation calls for that tenth occurrence, then I have firearms that can handle the task. But preparing for war is not just about personal protection. Its more than that—it’s about keeping your society functioning when elements of safety and structure are threatened. For that you need to have guns—lots of guns. The more the better—because guns ensure that pockets of violence will be isolated to areas that don’t have guns—which gives those in charge of retaking areas dominated by violence and chaos a chance to strategically do so. Guns help a lot more than any study has so far proclaimed. They bring peace of mind to more than just the family residence—they make it hard for bad guys to run loose and prey on the innocent where opportunity through economical means is more prevalent. Guns mean defense not just of private property, but entire regions. So the most practical and best way to prepare for this upcoming war—and perhaps even prevent such a tragedy is to buy a gun today. And better yet—several guns. Guns mean stability.

Those who are against private gun ownership ironically are those who have mismanaged the situation to the level they currently are—and they are not in a position to offer their criticisms. The world has gone astray under their advice so its time to stop listening to them. They were given a seat at the table of thought and they failed—miserably. That leaves the rest to deal with the crises they created—and to do that—we need guns–lots and lots of guns. The war of tomorrow won’t be fought with tanks, airplanes or even ground troops. It will be fought by individuals against collectivists and for the individual the gun gives them leverage against the terrorism that comes often from mobs of activists seeking to advance their cause—whatever it may be. In the case of Islam it is the worship of a god. In the case of politics, it is a left-leaning Karl Marx philosophy. But in all cases individuals have to protect capitalism and to do that—we need guns. When a society has a lot of guns, it will have the swagger that’s needed to fight back against horrible enemies who think like animals and are willing to do anything to anybody just to advance their version of reality.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The .500 Magnum: A story of strategy and understanding

I don’t talk about it much but one of my very first occupations, for which I spent two years of education gearing up for, was a professional gunsmith. I was newly married and my wife and I wanted to have a little gunsmith shop in the back of our home. I had a Federal Firearms License and had made several investments to build our life in that direction. However, I grew weary of some of the customers that came to my residence and having little children of mine running around decided that it probably wasn’t best to do that kind of work with my family nearby. Some of the people who solicited my work were not the kind of people I considered upright, and I wasn’t willing to put up with them until my client list allowed me to be more selective. So I gave it up in favor of new horizons. But I never stopped enjoying the sport of shooting or following the new developments in the firearms field. To my mind a well machined firearm capable of controlled explosions sending a lead projectile into a small target many yards away is a fascinating achievement in human endeavor. With that said, I have always been a revolver guy as opposed to a semi-automatic gun user. There are less moving parts in a revolver making them more reliable. Of the recent developments in revolvers there has not been anything more spectacular than the Smith & Wesson X Frame models leading up to the .500 Magnum. I fell in love with the gun when it first came out in 2003. For the bachelor party of one of my daughters we skipped the strippers and instead rented out Target World firing off the .500 magnum they had until the small hours of the evening. But I never found justification to buy one—until now.

It’s an expensive gun to own and shoot. It costs over $3.00 per shot just to fire off the ammunition but what you get is a weapon that will penetrate about anything you aim it at. It’s really quite an achievement in raw power that you can hold in your hand. It is one of the most intimidating weapons on the market from both sides of the trigger. It’s not the most practical thing to use and takes some getting used to. I kept putting off buying one, until one day this past Saturday when I got off the live radio show with Matt Clark’s WAAM broadcast and decided that it was time to make the plunge. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.

The topic of our show was why there was a left-leaning media bias and we flew through a lot of topics in the hour-long broadcast. But we did it in such a way that it put in perspective to me that our nation is in a lot of trouble. Not in trouble in the way where the government is going to show up and take all our guns, or involve themselves in vast conspiracies against the American people. We are in trouble due to the sheer mismanagement of our nation by really terrible people, like the Clintons, the Obamas, and the offshoots of the Clinton Foundation. There are real thugs in these groups associated with these people who have mismanaged our nation with an agenda based assumption that the American presidency is to be eclipsed in favor of a United Nations coalition not organized politically so much as it is through charitable organizations. The writing is clearly on the wall, the Clintons are selling influence, Obama is planning on being a multimillionaire community activist that will take the Clinton Foundation to the next level making whoever sits in the White House more of a token figure than they are now. Deals will be made outside of our political system by donors organized through charitable organizations, and nobody will say anything about it because the evil is being hidden behind altruistic purposes. Meanwhile the failures of progressivism is becoming rapidly evident. The Ferguson and Baltimore riots are just the tip of a powder keg intentionally set to explode in our current time. The poor have been deliberately fed socialism as a means to equality and they will riot to steal what they think they deserve from those who have things as the Obama and Clinton types stoke the fires from behind the scenes. Additionally over the weekend Obama showed that he intends to prohibit the federal government from providing military-style equipment to local departments putting stricter controls on other weapons and gear distributed to law enforcement. Clearly that is a decision meant to embolden city protestors into continuing their riots and destruction—but in the long run is to fulfill the Obama desire to have a more Justice Department controlled police force at a national level. It is quite clear that these are errors in management of government resources that will become very problematic in the future. So it is up to each of us to decide how we want to deal with the ramifications of that mismanagement.

After I left the air with Matt my wife and I talked about it seriously—what to do at the family level with all these national faux pas. It can be debated as to whether those faux pas are motivated by progressive strategies, or whether they are driven by sheer stupidity—but the fact remains, that it will be up to the sane of us to put things right. We certainly won’t look for the fight, but the fight is certainly coming to our doors whether or not we like it—and this isn’t even considering the problems from foreign radicals flowing across an unguarded U.S. border. Idiots or insurgents are in charge of our nation and the ramifications of their behavior will have an impact on our lives. So, what are we supposed to do about it except use the tools available to us such as this blog, or radio shows like Matt’s to stop the encroachment of progressive politics and the results of its many failures? Well, I thought about my old days as a gunsmith and my three decades as a Wild West preservationist and realized that I needed to get more behind the Second Amendment not only as a plot device, but as a strategic counterpunch to the villainy that is sprouting up around us like dandelions on a spring day.

It was really my wife’s idea to buy the .500 Magnum. I was ready for it, I have been for years, but she needed to be ready for that. So we talked about it, and she clearly was. I have other guns, but nothing on the scale of that S&W .500 X Frame. It is the most powerful production handgun in the world and will remain so for many years in the future. The sheer power of that gun in anything bigger would likely shatter the wrist of a shooter. It is right at the top end of what a human body can legitimately handle. We decided we wanted the gun before the Memorial Day holiday so we pretty much got in the car and headed to the store. Our first stop was Right 2 Arms which is basically at the end of my street in Liberty Township. I like supporting area businesses so I wanted to give him the kind of business that would allow him to close early on a weekend. When I told the owner what I was looking for he laughed as if such a large gun on his shelves was something that just wasn’t feasible. But he offered to find me one within a few days. His price was less than the one I had been eyeing for several years at Bass Pro Shop also near my home, but I didn’t want to wait. We thanked him and went to Bass Pro to find the gun.

The .500 Magnum was where I expected it to be. It was an older model X Frame that had the standard compensator at the end of the barrel. It was the same exact style of gun that I had shot at Target World many years earlier, so we bought it on the spot. After thinking about the progressive intrusions on our lives so evident in the nightly news, I was happy that I had bought the gun nicknamed by all the workers as the “hand cannon” from the popular outdoor store because it was so refreshingly American—the way it was always intended. After completing a quick form for the background check, they gave me the gun, sold me the ammunition as my wife and I then went shopping for other items carrying the gun around with us as we grabbed some food. Nobody looked sideways at the big gun as I carried it around the store like a normal purchase. In the world of Bass Pro guns were not demonized, they were flying off the shelves at a rapid rate and the people selling them were helpful, and excited. It was a very positive experience.

Back in the old days when I first registered for my Federal Firearms License there was always a kind of regulation heavy taboo associated with guns that was wonderfully not present at Bass Pro. I understand Cabelas has the same general approach. I would expect openness at typical gun shops, but those types of stores have a higher profile and are geared more toward retail shopping. Walmart and Dicks offers ammunition, but more and more buying them feels socially like it’s some kind of pornography, which is completely wrong. That was not the experience at Bass Pro. I bought my .500 Magnum and all the staff was excessively helpful. It was exactly what I needed to feel when buying the long-awaited S&W X Frame—it restored my hope just a bit in America and the kind of people who are more and more living in the cracks running from the mismanagement of the cities and their left-leaning governments within whatever unfortunate county those cities reside in. The suburbs, where I live are filled with people shopping at Bass Pro Shops buying guns, ammunition, and fishing gear the way Americans always have. If they watch the news it’s usually Fox—if they listen to the radio, its likely talk radio like Rush Limbaugh—and they are under assault by the mismanaged resources of the federal government.

It occurred to me as I thought about buying that gun and the experience of purchasing it that if every American did something similar that the act alone would go a long way to defeating many of the progressive failures that are coming. It’s nice to have a military and a police department to sweep away bad guys without our direct involvement, but more often than not, they are getting their orders from knuckle-dragging slugs that have the intellect of a hard-boiled egg. They really are not qualified to protect our homes and our property. With that in mind it is fully my intention to dust off my old gunsmithing days and get involved in more promotional activity that will make other people want to go to Bass Pro Shops or Cabelas and buy themselves a new gun just for the pleasure of having it. Because if they do, that action goes a long way to eroding away the hopes and dreams of progressive insurgents who want to disarm America into a European type of colony firmly under the guidance of the United Nations. And the United Nations will largely be shaped by people like those involved in the Clinton Foundation crimes. That’s not acceptable to me, and my family isn’t going to suffer because of people like them. It’s not that shooting people is the solution either, but sometimes just having guns is enough to keep the bad guys in the bad areas when all hell breaks loose, which looks like an inevitable destination for our current culture. When hell does get loose it helps to unleash some hell of your own and for me that answer is the .500 Magnum—a wonderful treasure from Smith & Wesson. The best way to fight back against progressives is to buy a gun—and Bass Pro Shops makes it wonderfully easy. Better than it used to be in the early days of gunsmithing. Some things do get better with time.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Brilliance of Junkie XL: A review of ‘Fury Road’s’ soundtrack

I was just a bit stunned by the wonderful music I heard while watching the latest Mad Max film. You can see a bit of why in the video clip below dedicated to the composer Junkie XL—who used to be a DJ in a previous life. The music to me sounded remarkably like Hans Zimmer’s score on Man of Steel. So I wondered if Zimmer knew that Junkie used some of his Man of Steel music in Fury Road. After a quick check I discovered that the two composers have studios next to each other in Santa Monica and that they have become close friends. So that explained why the music was so jaw dropping phenomenal. The use of drums in Man of Steel for me was a major milestone in soundtrack design and I have been looking forward to other scores utilizing the same creative use. Fury Road was that next film and the music is so heart pounding excellent that the moment the movie was over, my wife and I went on an incredible journey to find the soundtrack.

On May 15^th I had long-planned to take the afternoon off my normal obligations and see Mad Max with my wife. When we were dating I showed her all the Mad Max films along with Dirty Harry so we could see if we’d like each other enough to continue our relationship. She of course loved them, so we got married. For me, if a woman didn’t understand Mad Max and Dirty Harry, she wouldn’t be capable of sharing a life with me, so liking those films was a deal breaker. For me it’s almost a religious experience to see a Mad Max film, so I blocked off the afternoon to see the move. Before the film I was able to have lunch with my wife, one of my daughters and my grandson. It put me in an exceptionally good mood for actually seeing the movie. I knew I would like the film—I wasn’t sure how much—but it was overall leading up to the movie a very positive, long-planned experience.

After the movie my wife and I looked at each other knowing we had just watched a masterpiece for the first time and professed our love for the film until the last credit cleared the screen. READ MY REVIEW BY CLICKING HERE. But that soundtrack for Junkie XL was stuck in my head and I wanted the music. I didn’t want to wait to receive it from Amazon.com. I wanted it in the car for my ride home. So we went on a journey all over Cincinnati to find it. We checked Barnes and Nobel on Fields Ertle Road first—they didn’t have it. Then we went to Target and Best Buy in that same area. They didn’t have it. We then hit the highway and headed to the Streets of West Chester to the Barnes and Nobel there. They surprisingly didn’t have it either. I was really getting frustrated. So we were about to give up and go home. But not wanting to surrender we hit one last spot, the Best Buy at Bridgewater Falls.

I love the Best Buy at that location because it’s full of new technology all the time. It’s a big store relative to some of the others and always has a nice ambiance to it. I’ve bought a lot of computer equipment, video games and appliances there, so I generally love my visits to the Best Buy at Bridgewater Falls. After some frantic looking I found two copies of Fury Road stuck behind soundtracks to Pitch Perfect 2—and I beheld them as if they were treasures from the Sierra Madre. We bought one of them and headed to our car where we spent the next hour listening to the music from our sound system. It was a brilliant score well worth the purchase. I didn’t stop the music over the whole duration of the following weekend.

The key to the success of the music is the inventiveness of the ambition behind the score that obviously is inspired by Hans Zimmer. But Junkie XL brought a kind of rock and roll ambition to it that is strangely evocative of the dystopian world of George Miller. Unlike the old Blade Runner soundtrack which is a favorite of mine, Fury Road is full of hope and energy. I found it strangely compelling which is something I didn’t expect.

It didn’t take much time for me to get the soundtrack on my iPod where I proceeded to listen to it on a loop for several days. By the time I wrote this little piece on it, I have heard it upwards of 25 complete times and I like it more each time I hear it. It is another wonderful and often unappreciated journey into musical mayhem by some of the most creative people in the movie business. I have included some videos on this article about Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL to provide some context as to why I love soundtracks so much—often more than the movies themselves. As I’ve said before there isn’t one work of music on my iPod out of 8 gigs of storage ability that is not a soundtrack to some movie. I love mythology, movies are modern mythology, and the music of movies is what holds those stories together. Without a good soundtrack, a movie isn’t much. But with a good soundtrack, a movie can tell its story on a scale that lasts. For me one of those benchmarks was the Man of Steel soundtrack. So it came to me as a surprise to learn that Hans Zimmer and his friend Junkie XL were working on the soundtrack to Dawn of Justice together, with Junkie handling the Batman tracks while Zimmer works the Superman needs. Now that I’ve heard Junkie XL named more formally Tom Holkenborg, create such a masterpiece with Fury Road I am eagerly looking forward to the next Superman film by Zach Snyder.

Music is one of those things that stays with you long after the lights come up in a darkened theater. If the story was a good one, the music of the movie can go with you anywhere you wish by the soundtrack of the film. After Fury Road I couldn’t wait to keep my mind in that mythology because there were thoughts there that were pertinent to my observations—and the music helped usher those thoughts along. So the journey was hard-fought and worth the effort, because the work that Junkie XL brought forth is indicative of a treasure that will continue giving for many years. And for me, that means many more Friday afternoons with my wife and the treasures of cinema that come from blocked off mythology given to minds that love the stories they tell on the backs of really good music.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

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