Tag: Free Will

The Many Achievements of Trump: How you know the media has been lying

How do you know they are lying? Because “they,” the mainstream media—so-called—won’t tell you all the good things that Donald Trump has so far done as president which Sean Hannity so wonderfully articulated on his television show, seen below. Hannity also showed the extreme level of hatred that the same MSM showed toward Trump’s various speeches over the last couple of weeks. I watched all those speeches and I’m hardly a right-winged lunatic and there were only good things expressed in each of them. There was nothing, “unhenged” in the contents that showed a president unfit for office or bordering on insanity. That’s how you can know the truth, because reality does not reflect what a majority of the news outlets reported, and that makes it obvious that there is something very devious going on.

Obviously I was no Obama fan. But during his first six months I had hopes that he might pull back the regulations on stem cell research and maybe cheerlead the nation a bit. I gave him a shot really for the first year. Even as the storm clouds of decent from the Tea Party started to gather in 2009 I was willing to give the guy a chance, until he proved that he was simply an Alinsky change agent looking to overthrow America from a legislative perspective. I would expect the same treatment of Trump from the political left and he’s not getting it.

Trump hasn’t been in office long enough to make any real mistakes so the rhetoric exhibited by the political left in voluminous detail by the MSN is an obvious sign that there is more to the story than just political ideology in conflict. We’re talking about long-established plans toward a different kind of America that has been rejected by voters through Trump and are crumbling in front of their faces, and they are furious about it.
I’m here to tell you that if these people are this freaked out that there is more they have been hiding that hasn’t been yet revealed, and that means to us that we thankfully elected Donald Trump at just the right time. Already Trump has done more than most presidents hope to do in four years so there will be much more to cheer on soon. But the viciousness of the media towards Trump says everything about their intentions. It’s important that we stick with the president to undo all that these insurgents have planned behind our backs for over a century.

Rich Hoffman
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Whatever Happened to Rich Hoffman: The demands of the moment shadow the heroics of the past

A good friend of mine was in one of those online chat areas when a discussion about me came up, so he shared the contents. Below is a bit of that conversation where a couple of people were doing some remember when’s in regard to my activity with the No Lakota Levy effort. What struck me was that there is a belief that I left the Lakota area so for those who wonder about such things I am writing this to correct the record.  To answer the question that lingers for many people I still do radio and television from time to time.  For instance here is a CNN bit I did for Trump just a few weeks ago.  I am still very active in many efforts and I lend myself where needed, often,  Here is what they said:

Jon Kennedy at one time there was a guy that had all the info on the schools and what they did with a lot of money that was in the bank he showed that the school broad loaned money for road projects to be done or paid for them I cant remember all of it but they spent a lot of money on roads and I think they did not get the money back and then they were in the hole and that’s when they start asking for more from the people in tax’s I sure wish I could find all that info you would not believe what they did

Lynda Zammit I think the person you may be looking for is Rich Hoffman. He brought all kinds of nasties forward about the district administration between 2005 and 2013 and they did everything they could to shut him up and lock him up. He left the area right after the November 2013 levy passed (by 241 votes!) and right before April 2014 when they did exactly what he said they were going to do – give themselves $2,000,000 in raises while cuts remaine

Jon Kennedy wow they locked him up

Lynda Zammit Jon Kennedy No – but they tried to. He left the area in 2014. They were also doing crazy things like hiring people to take signs down encouraging people to vote no on levies. Crazy times. His blog is still going though, he’s very vocal about a lot of things

Jon Kennedy ye I look all over I can not find that info but the guy lead the vote no on are schools for years and if I remember right they funded the 747 deal and union center over pass if I remember right

In all honesty, if they could have locked me up they would have but because of our good efforts with No Lakota Levy we forced the teacher’s union to behave in ways they weren’t used to. Also to their credit the school board did listen to our issues and have made attempts to manage their budget—only in the vacuum of a weakened teacher’s union that knew if they went on strike that I would personally eviscerate them in both the media and in any other form they chose. They did pass their levy in 2013 when some of our No Lakota Levy people broke ranks falling for the same kind of stuff that is being thrown at Donald Trump now—and Sheriff Jones did the very un-Republican thing to do and that was come out in favor of the tax increase so that he could put his cops in more buildings as fear of mass shootings in schools was a hot progressive topic at the time, so that pushed their vote count over the threshold. And as the commentators remembered, Lakota did exactly what I said they’d do.

After that vote I went back to work since I knew it would be a while before Lakota would try another levy. People have to remember that I’m a person who is in my prime income making years so it was quite a sacrifice to take the period from 2005 to 2013 to fight public school levies because that’s not a very popular thing to do. When people meet you it doesn’t paint a picture of solidarity—they tend to think of you as a radical so there is a cost that most people don’t feel they can shoulder. But I have a great reputation and can stand quite a lot so I offered myself to the cause. When it was over I went to work on the next big thing, a big international project that I’ve been working on for the last four years that involves many countries, travel and long work days—a minimum of 12 hours per day. It’s not uncommon for me to work 20-hour days because that’s what it takes to be successful at things—especially hard things. But for the record I never left the area of Lakota. I’m just busy on my next project. When I get involved in something I jump all in and it becomes most of my life. There will come a time when I will move on to the next thing and when that happens I’ll do it gladly.

I did get to speak to the Lakota school board leadership over the winter and we had a nice talk under pleasant circumstances. They don’t plan to go for another tax increase until after 2020 and I let them know that I’d fight them on it when they did. They didn’t listen to me on their new superintendent, they paid him more than the governor of Ohio instead of the $80K I suggested. They will say that’s market value. I say it’s an artificially inflated cost, and we’ll fight that out next time. So long as they aren’t asking for more money, I have better things to worry about—and I do. I would have liked to see more challengers for the school board elections this fall but most people don’t want to get involved, just like they were more than happy to fall in behind me during the Lakota levy fights. So long as I lent my reputation for everyone to throw darts at, people were very courageous. But the moment they had the slightest exposure or had to show courage in standing behind me, they buckled, and that’s why nobody wanted to go on the school board. Lots of people want to talk, but nobody wants to stand for anything. I knew that going in and I know that going forward and I’ll do it again when needed. But I’m not going to joust windmills just for the attention of doing so. When there’s a fight—I’ll be there. When there’s not a fight—I’ll do something productive elsewhere.

I suppose that’s why people think I left the area, even though I do get out and about often and I’m not shy about it. Fighting levies is not my calling card to being remembered which I suppose a lot of people might be prone to become seduced by. They may even use it to acquire public office which a lot of people thought I was after. No, there is a lot more money to be made in the private sector. I hate the slowness of government. Right now actually I am dealing with the patent office in Washington D.C. and several attorneys in between and it’s a miserable experience, much like dealing with government as a member of the school board or some other position. It is hard and takes a lot out of you to deal with mundane—boring people who are entrenched government employees. But I expect to be paid for these kinds of things. I certainly don’t do them for fun, and public office to me would be miserable because you are dealing with people like that every day. Maybe when I’m older and retired I’d do it to stay sharp, but I don’t have the time to give to it now because there is money to be made and I have an obligation to myself and my family to do it. So I’m still around. But when there’s a fight to fight—I’ll be right there. In the meantime, there are many other things to do.

Rich Hoffman

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Why the ANTIFA Terrorist Group are a bunch of Losers: Their tactical weaknesses and motivations

Look at this little bitch–this is what ANTIFA has as their field generals.

https://twitter.com/overmanwarrior/status/900540323897671680

Here’s a little strategic analysis on why there wasn’t violence at the Donald Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona. Around 2000 protestors gathered outside the arena where the President was speaking but there wasn’t a lot of nastiness between supporters and protestors mainly because the police and mayor addressed the issue before hand. Also, the crazy ANTIFA communists weren’t there in a very strong presence, and that is the real issue that we need to address. I have been watching the ANTIFA websites and studying what they are proclaiming about themselves. Clearly, they are a militant group intent on communism and they should be and probably will be declared domestic terrorists and enemies of all our livelihoods. They project themselves as a bunch of scary collectivists but in reality, they are missing a few things that need to be understood by weak-kneed Republicans looking to cave to these barbarians without a fight.

I didn’t pay much attention to ANTIFA until their activism at Boston recently where they had on their Twitter page a red Tea Party flag with the communist fist crushing the snake saying “We will tread on you.” Well, those are fighting words and it provoked me to change the header photo on my Twitter page to let them know as they scan through my stuff what is in store for them if they attempt such a thing. Just those words, “we will tread on you” implies force and a loss of individual sanctity and that is something to fight for. I can say for myself—I live peacefully and leave people alone—more than most people would. I’m a very laissez-faire individual. I don’t bother people even though I think much of what people do is disgusting and personally destructive. I usually leave them alone to do what they will so long as they don’t impose it on me. But if they do, that’s another story. I fight to win and looking back through my history I’d challenge anybody to find any wars that I’ve lost. Maybe a few battles here and there, but never the war. So I have a pretty good track record and given ANTIFA’s attitude, I really don’t think those stupid kids know what they are doing. But they are pushing to impose themselves on the American way of life of capitalism and individual freedom, so a clash looks to be imminent.

https://twitter.com/overmanwarrior/status/900540820708786176

But here’s the thing, they were able to make themselves look big in college towns where population densities of stupid people tend to hang out, like Boston, and Charlottesville—and their villainy was only covered in these events by tragic deaths and serious injuries inflicted by a known hate group—the KKK and those types of left-winged radicals who dedicated their lives to the kind of socialism Hitler was so found of. Those nut cases from the so-called “alt-right” which is still the political left on the spectrum of philosophy covered the villainy of ANTIFA by being only slight worse and attracting the attention of a media looking for a mask for their political ideology. But ANTIFA is an organization looking for trouble in the same way that the Weather Underground used to and many who cheered the destruction of the Twin Towers during 9/11. It wasn’t just Muslim radicals who cheered in the streets—it was also members of the American left who hate capitalism. And you typically find large concentrations of those people in American universities teaching these young porous kids bad ideas that get them into trouble.

However, if you step away from the college campuses and the inner cities where people are addicted to welfare and therefore government assistance for their livings—the recruiting numbers for ANTIFA die down quickly. They can put out their calls to arms and promote their radicalism on their websites, but their activity loses steam quickly once they move out of their habitat zones. To try an insurgency against suburbia—where most Trump supporters live and the conservative movement as a whole resides, they lose their effectiveness due to a lack of participation. ANTIFA members can’t function very well too far from their Xbox units and the local Starbucks—so to engage Trump supporters at their roots isn’t possible. That reality was obvious in Phoenix where the ANTIFA booth sat empty most of the night while the president was talking. ANTIFA needs two things to be successful, they need large gatherings of young people and they need them to be stupid liberals not yet forged by the realities of life. Without those elements, they are clawless dogs all bark and no bite.

I watched them fight on television throwing their urine and feces at people, using sticks, shovels and even axes to inspire fear in the people they were engaging against. By displaying their lack of respect for the laws of our capitalist society then they won’t complain too much when we meet them with force as well. Surely, they don’t expect us to just sit and take it? People who live in cities are willing to put up with more than people who live in suburbia or the country. In fact I know people who live in eastern Ohio who would turn these kids into pretzels at first sight of them in a grocery store. ANTIFA would not be tolerated in the country—therefore they will have no impact on politics or policy. Their violence is purely for show and is needed for the television cameras to drive up their sagging ratings. Without ANTIFA the political left in the media don’t have much to sour the successes coming from the Trump administration. They can complain about the silly procedural things or the way Trump says things, but they can’t knock his results—3% economic growth, low unemployment, a successful standoff with North Korea—record setting stock market. ANTIFA is the media’s only hope, and they look scary on television but in reality, they are just a bunch of skinny, fat and otherwise docile millennials who will cry when the sun hits their blank faces. They can’t endure a real war. They don’t want what they say they want.

No little group of ANTIFA punks is going to tread on me, let me promise that much. If they do, they have big problems. And that goes in general for any strategy that might take them out into the countryside. It’s one thing to stage a demonstration on a college campus where their dorms and apartments are just a few blocks away. It’s another to face down a bunch of pissed off farmers or moonshiners in the mountains of West Virginia. Yeah, that wouldn’t work out to well for them—ANTIFA. Their reach isn’t very far and they aren’t tough at all. They are spoiled brats that want a free ride of communism to give them more video game time—so their convictions aren’t rooted very deep—making them easy to defeat. That was very obvious in Phoenix. They are a made-up media paper dragon that is part of an illusion of resistance toward Trump. But reality states that they are quite disappointing up close and even worse when taken out of their native habitat. As terrorists, their efforts will be short-lived.

Rich Hoffman

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John Kasich Caves to ANTIFA: Feeding the enemy does not help defeat them

Like the liberal progressive he is, John Kasich had his people removed a valued painting of the Confederate General John Hunt Morgan from a vacation destination in Ohio as reported by PJ Media in the below article. I have always loved history and specifically I have a soft spot for the rebellion that emerged out of the American Civil War. I like the Confederates—there was great passion and bravery in that war. Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were some of the greatest tactical minds of military endeavor ever. If I had the opportunity to pick sides I would have obviously picked the Union—I do not support slavery in any form. I hate authority so the idea of a person being owned by anybody or any institution is disgusting to me—so I have no sympathy for slavery. But, I do enjoy Civil War battlefields and monuments because it was during that war that the human race started pushing back against the idea of people being owned by other people in any capacity—and there is value in that. And much of that history was forged right in my home state of Ohio with these Civil War tributes. But then this happened:

A painting of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan was removed from the lodge at Salt Fork State Park, a popular vacation and retreat spot, at the behest of the Ohio Department of National Resources, (trigger warning) the Daily Jeffersonian reports:

Recent controversy over Confederate statues and clashes between white nationalists and those who oppose them has resulted in a painting of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan being taken down at Salt Fork Lodge. During the Civil War, General Morgan led a raid into Ohio, which went through Guernsey County before Morgan and his men were captured near East Liverpool. In the painting, General Morgan is depicted leading his men in battle. Morgan’s Raid has been a part of Guernsey County lore ever since the incidents in July of 1863. The decision to take down the painting came through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“We decided to take the painting down in light of recent events,” Matt Eiselstein of ODNR said. “The painting, done on canvas, was carefully removed from the wall and is currently being safely stored.”

The painting shows Gen. Morgan, who led a raid through Ohio in 1863, on horseback. Another soldier in the painting is waving a Confederate flag. Morgan and his men were captured near East Liverpool, Ohio, but Morgan escaped and fled Ohio. Local historian Rick Booth wrote:

By early September, 1864, he (Morgan) was leading a force of 1,500 men in the vicinity of Greeneville, Tenn. Underestimating the proximity and danger posed by Union troops nearby, Morgan opted to sleep the night in pampered luxury at a local mansion rather than tent uncomfortably with his men outside the town. When Union commanders chose to march on Greeneville through the night, Morgan’s choice of pleasantries over safety turned fatal. As federal troops approached Greeneville, several reports came in that Morgan was resting in the lightly guarded town mansion. Two cavalry companies were quickly dispatched to rush into the town and surround the mansion with orders to bring back Morgan dead or alive.

General Morgan, loathing the thought of ever spending time in Union captivity again, had promised his wife he would do everything in his power to avoid capture. And so, when confronted by an armed cavalryman demanding his surrender, Morgan chose to run. A shot rang out, and the man who barely a year before had led Confederate forces through Guernsey County’s Cumberland, Senecaville, Lore City, Old Washington, Winterset and Antrim fell dead.

Booth characterized the raid as “an unusual affair, conducted against orders in mid-1863.”

In the wake of the Charlottesville protests, at least two Ohio cities have also removed Confederate memorials.
In Franklin, near Cincinnati, a stone marker commemorating Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed Thursday, and in Worthington, near Columbus, a historic marker outside the former home of a Confederate general was removed.

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/08/21/kasich-administration-quietly-removes-painting-confederate-general-state-park/

Kasich isn’t trying to protect the Confederate painting at Salt Fork State Park from ANTIFA communists and other lunatics, he’s appeasing them. He’s trying to make the Republican base believe he has the interests of history in mind when in reality he is seeking to distance himself even further from the Trump administration which at this point is a serious mistake. That’s why he is weak. No culture should seek to appease thugs and book burners. My first experience with any culture that were history erasers were the Nazis. But I have often spoken very harshly about the Roman barbarians that attacked the Library at Alexandria, the many Catholic crusades against pagan monuments and the modern academic re-writing of history to fit the Columbus origin story—which has been false. The Indians were not Native-Americans—but were themselves immigrants from China and all places around the globe well before the New World was discovered. It was only “new” to the Europeans fleeing their homelands due to religious persecution. Everyone has been running from something and everything came to a spill over point during the American Civil War.

History tells us that because of that war people were freed. Slavery ended in North America because of that war—not in spite of it. And there is a lot for us to learn about ourselves from the Confederacy. It is not permissible for these modern communists—which is what ANTIFA is all about—to erase our history and to re-write it in the image of liberalism. That’s just not going to be allowed to happen. But Kasich as governor of Ohio should have known better. And he picked the wrong side to appease.

Rich Hoffman

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An Indiana Jones Land at Animal Kingdom: Yes, there is a heaven on earth–or rather–there soon will be

 

I love covering these more fun topics because there is a lot of very serious news out there.  But to me all this is connected whether we’re talking about business, politics, or entertainment—we are talking about culture building.  What makes human beings distinct and very unique in the universe is our vast imaginations.  Even if we were to meet intelligent life capable of working out the details of Type 1 or 2 Civilizations of interstellar travel I would put the human imagination up against anybody.  I see great promise for human potential in our arts, our literature, our religions, our buildings, sculptures, and paintings and I think over the next 1000 years we will become to be known as distinctly unique among all creation.  So I have no problem taking a moment to revere elements that I think are very special.  For me personally Walt Disney “the man” was the king and his vision for Disney World was magnificent.  The way he bought up all that property in Florida under a cloak of secrecy was brilliant and it’s starting to pay off big time 50 years later in the evolution of the human race.  Everyone who reads here knows how excited I am about the new Star Wars Land called Galaxy’s Edge that is coming to Hollywood Studios in 2019.  I’ve made no secret about what I think that does on a vast scale of art and human achievement—aside from just being a cool place to visit.  Well, rumor has it which has gained serious traction in mid-August 2017 that an Indiana Jones Land is being considered at Animal Kingdom and let me just say that for me that is jaw dropping exciting.   I may move there just to visit it every day—that news is that exciting to me.

To some, Indiana Jones is just four movies with a fifth one on the way that were fun throwbacks to a style of filmmaking that died in the 1950s.  They are still fun to watch and people generally like them.  They’ve certainly held up to the tests of time.  However, I would argue that Indiana Jones has been the single greatest contributor to science and the funding of sciences in the history of the world.  Because of Indiana Jones—I would argue—science went from a geeky academic pursuit and moved to a mainstream coolness that is largely funding the efforts of cable television to this very day.  Without Indiana Jones I don’t think Josh Gates would have any television shows on The Travel Channel.  I don’t think half the archeology which has really opened up our understanding of history would have happened especially the great work that English Heritage has done in Europe.  Indiana Jones made studying history cool and that has greatly benefited the entire human race in ways that are impossible to pin down.  If you interviewed most people in the history fields you’d find an Indian Jones fan deep in their hearts.

Even the History Channel’s popular show Ancient Aliens got a lot of its fuel for programming investment based on the premise of the last Indiana Jones film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.   So the footprint of Indiana Jones on the sciences in our culture is huge.   I grew up with those movies and it’s hard for me often to tell which I like more, Indiana Jones or Star Wars as products of Lucasfilm.   Indiana Jones suits me more on a personal level.  I love the character and the enthusiasm Indiana Jones has for life—he’s a wonderful invention from the mind of George Lucas and a real gift to our civilization.  I personally think Raiders of the Lost Ark is the greatest movie of all time—it’s better than Citizen Kane, it’s better than Casablanca, it’s better than Ben Hur.  It’s a technical masterpiece in every film making category and it justifiably deserves its place in history.

In the back of my mind I was hoping that under the Disney ownership of Lucasfilm that Indiana Jones would be elevated in their park presence.  For me the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular at Hollywood Studios is worth the price of admission all by itself.  To have his own land similar to what is being done for Star Wars would be I think a magnificent endeavor that would spark the minds of many would-be scientists for decades to come.   Even better the chance to immerse yourself into an Indian Jones story is something a lot of people would enjoy.  I know I would.  The study of archaeology is a new science and there is a lot to yet uncover about our own past—and starting from a point of imagination—asking “what if” is the way to begin that productive process.

Having an Indiana Jones land at Animal Kingdom would without question ignite many of those young minds to a more serious career in the sciences by revering some of the fun that can happen in the world of adventure.  I’d be inclined just to go there to read books in that fantasy Indiana Jones environment.  Based on what Disney has done with Avatar and is doing with Toy Story, Cars, and now Star Wars—making an Indiana Jones land would dramatically enhance the goal of Animal Kingdom as an education platform attached to thrilling entertainment.   Indiana Jones may be a fictional character but he is the jumping off point for most people in understanding the reasons behind science.  I find the character and spirit of Indiana Jones to be remarkably optimistic and fun.  It is fun to learn new languages, it is fun to discover new things, and it is fun to always try to do something even if it doesn’t work out.  Indiana Jones isn’t always successful, but he does always try to be.  He’s a wonderful character.

IMG_5099.JPGI enjoyed Raiders of the Lost Ark so much as a kid that I bought and read The Egyptian Book of the Dead when I was 12 years old complete with hieroglyphics.   When I was 13 my grandmother gave me some really fantastic books, The Living Bible Encyclopedia in Story and Pictures which came in 16 volumes and were published in 1968.  They are real treasures before revisionism of history had really set in to contaminate such works.  I spent the next couple years reading them voluminously.  At 14 I was a member of the New York City club for rare books and prints.  They didn’t last very long, they didn’t make it out of the 80s, but I loved getting their catalog and sometimes saving up $200 in lawn mowing money to buy some rare book from a remote corner of the world—and reading it.  Nobody in public school convinced me that reading was important but once I saw Indiana Jones, reading became a huge part of my life and still is to this day.  Indiana Jones was smart and tough breaking the belief that you had to be one or the other and for me that made a life changing framework which still is a huge part of my life.  So having a real Indiana Jones world that you can walk around in and interact with would be tremendous to young minds waiting for a spark to ignite their imaginations.

More Indiana Jones in our culture would help it.  With that said, Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones.  But there have been other actors in the very good television show The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles which I have all the DVD collection sets that use the character to tell the story of our history and they are real treasures.  There is a lot that Disney could do with Indiana Jones to inspire education in youth while telling fresh stories to keep the imaginations alive in all people no matter what their age.  Just the movies have done much of what we see today in scientific optimism.  I was at the Louvre in Paris a few months ago standing at the Mona Lisa and I joked to my daughter that we had first experienced that painting at that famous museum during an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as she was growing up.  That’s what we did as a family.  We watched Indiana Jones movies together and I certainly gave them the adventure bug because of it.  In fact today one of my son-in-laws is going on a cross-country motorcycle trip today and both of my daughters are going sky diving—and when they were all younger we watched  Indiana Jones movies and those Young Indy DVDs together—and they inspired them too.  Anyway, we’re at The Louvre talking about Indiana Jones and the Mona Lisa and an employee who was French and couldn’t speak a bit of English came over and spoke to us upon hearing the name, Indiana Jones.  Yes, he understood the show we were talking about, he had seen it and that was what inspired him to work at The Louvre and become interested in art.  We were able to communicate because we all mutually loved Indiana Jones.  That is the power of that kind of character and the marvelous opportunity that Disney has by putting an Indiana Jones land in their Animal Kingdom.  It would be sheer magic for me, but for many other people, it would be a place of inspiration and adventure.   I can’t freaking wait!

Rich Hoffman

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The Power of Reading: If you want to succeed in life, books are the key

IMG_5095It happens to me at least twice a week where some claim jumper tries to leap onto something I’ve worked very hard for, and they think that if they impose themselves at the finish line that somehow success will find them.  It is the human nature of lazy people to desire to mooch off the efforts of others so rather than do the work themselves they spend that energy looking for some easy way to get ahead in life.  I usually don’t get too upset about those types of things because I know what will happen next.  Once I notice such a thing I immediately give them the wheel to the ship so that they can see how difficult things are once I remove myself from the process—and they crash nearly immediately because they lack the skills to conduct themselves.  When you work hard to dig for the gold and haul it out of a metaphorical canyon up a muddy, slippery trail and at the top some claim jumper wants to then help you carry it to the market with a 50/50 split and call it “team work” I always call bullshit because of the effort is not rooted in equality, or even fairness—but in looting.  When people are willing to work as hard as I do at anything, they then might have the right to some equal portion of the credit.  And in that regard I find this little Twitter statement below to be enormously valuable to people who routinely ask me—how do you do what you do?

For well over forty years now I have read a lot, but once I was married at age 19 I have averaged at least a book a week over that entire time which puts me now at well over a 1000.  I say only a 1000 because some books take me three weeks sometimes, or a month to get through because they are big books or difficult—or both.  But on average it comes out to well over that number because some books can be read in hours or days like Donald Trump’s Think like a Champion or Marx’s Communist Manifesto.  Stupid people like those Karl Marx easy books and that is why they are attracted largely to communist ideas.   I read all types of books, business, fiction, philosophy, history, motivational, conspiracy—there are very few topics that I don’t read.  My favorites have been books by Joseph Campbell and my least favorite are by liberals.  I did just read a book that I picked up in England called The Red Dean of Canterbury by John Butler which I struggled with but learned a lot from.   I struggled with it because I didn’t enjoy the real life character of Hewlett Johnson who was the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral during the World War years.  I was at a book store in Canterbury and they offered the book free to me because I had spent over $200 dollars.  Never one to turn down a book, I took it and I read it mostly while my wife shopped in various English towns.  I always try to make good use of my time which is something else I have little tolerance for.  I’m never bored—I am always doing something and thinking.  Anyway, that book was about how the Dean of Canterbury was a communist who could not separate the philosophy of collectivism from the Christian idea of God’s Kingdom on Earth.  But he was right, there is a lot of similarities between communism and all churches which was not a pleasant read for me—but it was worth struggling through for the thought process of working out difficult concepts.  I don’t just read stuff I enjoy, I read things that often challenge me like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake which is one of my most treasured accomplishments.  Very few people on earth have worked through that one because of the enormous difficulty in reading it.  It’s essentially written in a dead language where each word has multiple meanings spanning the history of the human race from a European perspective—so you have to know something of European history to even attempt the book.  But it felt good to get through it.

When people ask me how I can write so much, or when they wonder how I can talk for hours and hours about just anything without notes or reference pictures the secret for me is that I have read so many books that I have a massive archive of information to always draw from to apply to any experience.   When somebody asks me something I always have an answer—because after reading over a 1000 books somewhere at some point I encountered someone who had been through it before.  And the process of reading is a superior way of developing information in the brain.  You could read cereal boxes and the process of reading would still benefit you because of the way the eyes have to work with cognitive imagination to paint a picture in the mind to be retained by short and long-term memory.  Reading is simply the best way to learn something and it’s a very individualized experience—which is specific to the human condition.  So yes, I can write over 1000 words a day on this blog because I have millions of words of acquired knowledge bouncing around in my head all the time and formulating those thoughts into these little articles help put context to them for me.  The process of writing therefore puts those thoughts to work and strengthens the neurons in my brain for easy recitation later—when I may need it.  Having all that stored knowledge helps develop that needed gut instinct that is so critical in thinking on your feet under pressure.   That’s essentially how I’m able to extract gold that is valuable to so many people—it certainly isn’t luck.  It’s hard work from my very intensive personal development.

The picture provided is of what is next to my leisure chair in my home.  Often I watch television, review documents on my computer and I read books all at the same time.  I have learned to read while many other things are going on so that multitasking can squeeze in the most activity in any given day and I have found that this gives me a distinct competitive advantage over most everyone I may need to professionally deal with.  I don’t say that to rub it in, but as hopefully some inspiration to those reading this.  When you do something so many times you can get pretty good at it and I can now read a voluminous amount of material—even boring legal stuff without any trouble and still live a fun life—such as watching a football game or a movie with my family.  It is a good skill to develop—high reading comprehension of voluminous material.   However, some of the best days of my life were days where I was able to turn off everything in life and just read a treasured book without interruptions for an entire day or weekend.  That doesn’t happen very often—but when it does, I am a very happy person.

So to me it is quite an insult for anybody to think that they can do what I can without putting in all the hard work.  When people assume they are equal to me without doing the work—it honestly pisses me off.  As I told several people this past week who were obvious claim jumpers and they utilized that famous “team” designation, I explained to them that teams are not made of equal parts of a whole.  Teams are dictatorships where a leader implements something and the rest of the team shuts up and listens—and does what the leader says.   The crap people are learning in college these days where group think rules and everyone gets a trophy is completely wrong.  It’s the person who knows the most and can utilize that knowledge through leadership that matters most.  Teams are the pawns on the chess board that shut up and do what they are told—they are not equal contributors to success.  If you don’t want to be a pawn in the great chess games of life—read more so that you can become a leader.

I started reading to acquire an offensive weapon over my enemies.  When I was a kid—11 to 19 years of age I had already learned martial arts for hand to hand combat and I was a bull whip master—meaning I could put out a candle with a bull whip and pretty much hit any target I wanted using it as a melee weapon.  I felt I could handle any situation presented to me.   For instance, when my wife and I were dating and she was a hot to trot model at 17 years old I had her downtown in Cincinnati in the rough part of town before going to a play at the Taft Theater.  Three big guys on Liberty Street wanted to know why I thought I had the guts to come out of suburbia with such a hot little women and think I could get away with it unimpeded in their neighborhood.   Well, I showed them and we made it to the Taft Theater on time and with only blood stains on my cloths—not from me.  I loved doing that kind of thing and still do.  But it was obvious that the real world wasn’t so literal as those three thugs.  Not everyone fought you face to face, most people do it behind your back.  So to beat them I knew I needed to be smarter and faster minded than them—so I started reading as an intellectual martial art.  Now I do it because I like it, but I started it as an offensive weapon against my many enemies and it worked great.  “Knowledge is power” is more than a cliché, it is quite true.   At this point, it would be hard for anybody to catch up to me so I know going in to any situation that the people I’m dealing with are handicapped and will be easy to intellectually beat.  I don’t rub it in, but I do sleep very well at night knowing that most of the things I do, only I can do.  So a little lesson to those who wonder how and why just remember—you have to do the work.  If people aren’t willing to do that work jumping a claim at the end of a process won’t yield positive results. It will just give me something to laugh at as they struggle under the assumption that we are all equal.  Sorry, we are not.  Some of us work hard.  Some of us work DAMN hard.  And those that do know how to work fly while those who don’t crash quickly and predictably.  You can’t cheat your way through life when knowledge is literally capital.  The best way to get knowledge is to read. It is in my opinion the greatest skill anyone could give themselves and for those who do read a lot—it almost always guarantees success in any venture you might want to embark on.  Which is why the best CEOs out there read an average of 60 books a year—it quite literally is the difference between success and failure.

Rich Hoffman

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ProgressOhio and Other Radical Leftists Copy the Tea Party: Why liberals will always lose–they lack intelligence

To understand the situation that we see today you’d have to go back nearly a decade to when I was fighting school levies and the evils of public education on radio stations and television to a great effect. Now my warnings have come to fruition, many of those kids who were in grade school back then getting openly socialist propaganda in their K-8 classes are now in their twenties ripping down historic monuments and joining forces with communists across the world to continue the efforts of Karl Marx.  It was in fact really the third decade of that kind of public education crises when I was sounding off the alarm bells—but each year has gotten worse leaving our next generation children to be mush minded losers largely due to the broken home situation that they have had outside of the school and open socialist indoctrination at the government institutions of learning.  They really had no chance.  And now that Trump is president they are attempting to overthrow his administration with all the tactics learned in that little, easy to read book, The Communist Manifestro.   Check out these links to see what kind of activity is brewing in my home state of Ohio.  You can bet that the same kind of behavior is going on across the nation and were fully in place ahead of the Charlottesville catastrophe—which was induced on all sides by radical leftists.  The “alt-right” were leftists well to the side of socialism and not even on the scale of American conservatism.  Then of course were the open socialists and communists of the Black Lives Matter group and the group called ANTIFA which was just another rendition of the “Occupy” anarchists who are about as far left on the social spectrum as you can get.  These are the people organizing future upheavals in my state as they seek to end the Trump presidency.  You can read their strategies at these sites.

https://www.indivisibleguide.com/guide/grassroots-advocacy/

http://www.indivisible513.org/

http://www.indivisible513.org/resources

http://progressohio.org/actioncalendar/

https://indivisiblenkydistrict4.org/

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2017/07/26/local-resistance-groups-rise-field-guide/494902001/

http://kyd4.org/2017/08/14/inkyd4-statement-on-charlottesville.html

I thought it was funny to see my old rivals at ProgressOhio reveal their intentions so openly, and desperate.  I haven’t heard from them in a while and had been wondering what they were up to.  Their vision of the Tea Party movement is pretty funny and based completely on ignorance.  I was a very active member of various Tea Party movements in the Cincinnati area from 2009 to 2014.  I kept myself on the edges which is how I normally deal with group behavior—but I was certainly very intimate as a functioning leader in the freedom movement for quite a long time.  I know how the Tea Party won and changed politics pushing out people like John Boehner and John Kasich from power and replacing them with people like Trump.  Once it looked like people such as Donald Trump, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz were going to run for president in 2015 most of us in the Tea Party movement picked our guy and we broke off to help whoever it was which is why my activity declined in 2014.  I picked Trump and went hard to work for his campaign.  And now I am quite happy that he is president.  I worked very hard to get him there, just as he worked very hard to get elected and the concerns I wanted to see addressed he is currently dealing with.  However, if any of these Progress Ohio, ANTIFA losers think that I’m going to let them destroy a presidency I worked hard to help put in place—they have another thing coming.

Here’s the deal as I see it—which should have considerable weight considering my history—the biggest difference between the Tea Party movement and these various personifications of ANTIFA is that our efforts were based on education. The socialist radicals are based on threats and intimidation behind group assimilation.  If you check their strategy on those above links they think that the Tea Party was successful because of their mass organizations—which were actually few and far between.   The real work happened at Tea Party meetings where good people offered classes on the Constitution and on the Founding Fathers so that those people would be better voters who could see through the media circus and elect proper people in the Republican Party and wrestle away the progressive influences from what was.  It took a few years but the trajectory of success was obvious and it was all based on educating people to be more informed voters.  We weren’t threatening to rip down statues.  We never tried to assassinate president Obama or even alluded to it. When the IRS came after us—and I was personally targeted by this because of my relationship with the Liberty Township Tea Party—we didn’t storm Washington or stand outside vandalizing Lois Lerner’s house—we fought them in court and at the ballot boxes.   We had a heck of a fight in the 2016 primaries.  My guy Trump won, and eventually most everyone got behind him and here we are—doing what we planned a decade ago—and doing so quite effectively.

What’s missing from the plans of ProgressOhio and all the other Ohio based progressive activist groups is education.  Sure they are trying to study now how the Tea Party was so successful and they’ll try to copy it—but they won’t be able to because all they have is the threat of violence to advocate their position and people aren’t going to put up with that any more.  Let me tell you that much.   These liberal groups cannot compete on the battlefield of ideas.  They cannot do three hours of radio in the middle of the day and attract 15 million listeners because their political philosophy is old and crusty—and un-American.  It might fly in Europe but that’s not saying much because Europe is crumbling away with economic rot.  No sane mind in America is going to sign up for that socialist garbage except for kids coming out of high school with a communist education who don’t yet know any better.  Socialism is boring and is a philosophy for the lazy which makes it really difficult for people in Progress Ohio to recruit anything but idiots to their cause because the smart people are either working or put their efforts behind the Tea Party. Lazy people don’t have the energy to perform the kind of education it takes to change people’s minds at the voting booth like the Tea Party did.

And that’s the real problem that all the leftist groups have. The people in their organizations are stupid, lazy and impatient.  They don’t have a sense of history or of personal values which is why if a group like ProgressOhio tried to educate voters the way the Tea Party did their members would likely become conservatives by default once they had knowledge.  The political left relies on emotion and stupidity to survive where the Tea Party was about knowledge and thoughtfulness.   Before each meeting there was a prayer and always the meetings were geared toward knowledge—not telling people how to think but in letting them learn on their own.  It was that knowledge that led to the 3 to 4% swing in voting patterns within the GOP which has evoked so much change—not just in electing Republicans, but in determining the kind of Republicans which get elected.

The political left which is the foundation of ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter are progressives looking for socialism and in order for that to work people need to be stupid. Pubic education has been successful in turning off the minds of our youth.  Most of them are complete idiots by the time they are adults.  But when they learn—if they learn—they become Republicans which is why they will never succeed.  For Progress Ohio to work their supporters need to use rioting to scare people into submission because they can’t win an intellectual debate.  And if they can’t win a debate, they can’t get elected.  Nobody is going to vote for a bunch of thugs—which is their strategy.  It worked for years under the umbrella of union membership but that mask has been pulled off now.  They are exposed for all their ugliness and this will hurt them on serious matters.  Sure, there will always be two or three hundred stupid degenerates who will stand outside of a congressional office and call Republicans “Nazis” but what are they offering by way of knowledge to help voters see their side of the story—except—“we’re going to burn down your house, rape your wives and key your car until you see things our way?”  That is the difference between the Tea Party and ANTIFA.  The Tea Party read books, they taught each other things and pursued an intellectual approach that changed the dynamics of politics.   All ANTIFA has are drug addicts, losers, video gamers who want socialism so they can sit on their fat assess all day playing Xbox, and mentally challenged fools vacant of intellectual curiosity.  That is not a winning formula and they will lose miserably in the months to come.

Rich Hoffman

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The Demons of Charlottesville: Screams from the evil trying to seduce us all to sleep

It took me a couple of days to get my mind around the extreme hypocrisy on full display in the wake of the Charlottesville racism issue in Virginia. I thought Donald Trump did a great job of addressing the nation just a few hours after violence broke out between the usual Black Live Matter communists and the Nazi socialists fighting over the removal a Robert E. Lee statue in that extremely liberal town.   At the time that Trump spoke he kept his statements general because after lunch on a Saturday afternoon it wasn’t yet known who ran over whom.   Was it the same ol’ radicals from Ferguson and Baltimore—or was it the skin heads, and Nazi fascists?  Trump couldn’t have been sure until much later and it was at that point that even Republicans were criticizing the president for not specifically identifying the white nationalists—as if he were associated with them.  It truly was an amazing display of evil—not in the violence at Charlottesville which was despicable in and of itself—but in the mass volume of the media propensity to advance a false plot against Trump that was truly vile.  Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago where a Bernie Sanders supporter shot up a bunch of Republicans at a baseball game, and a few months ago where Kathy Griffin held up the bloody severed head of a fake Donald Trump—and Snoop Dogg put out a video showing the mock assassination of our new president?  What we all witnessed in the wake of Charlottesville was a new kind of evil which was much more sinister than the kid who ran into a mob of communist radicals in a clash of leftist maniacs gone wild.

Again I was very proud of Donald Trump—he did all the right things at all the right times during the crises and the people who came out in criticism against him are the people who are protecting the swamp we are all trying to drain.  If you wanted to root out the Never Trump types who are holding up legislation in congress to prevent the President’s agenda from being implemented then just listen to those who criticized Trump so quickly.  They had an agenda against Trump and they used the death and injury of people at this tragic protest as a way to advance their selfish agenda.

There were many times in just the past eight years that Barack Obama took many days to respond to a tragedy on the scale of Charlottesville and when he did he often didn’t come close to providing an adequate statement.  The media, even the conservative media, never went this crazy over anything any previous president has said on a national stage.  This attitude against Trump is a whole new category of hate revealed through a swarm of aggression born from sheer evil.  It was a truly magnificent display of pure malevolence.

Trump revised his statement on Monday, August 14th to include all the white supremacy groups that the media had been criticizing him for not specifying.  I didn’t think he should have done so—he should have just let his Saturday statement stand.  After all, he addressed the real issue correctly the first time and nothing he could or would say would matter.  These parasites were going to use anything he said as a way to attempt to paint him into a corner.  The media and many of the Never Trumpers who lost to Trump during the 2016 campaign wanted to pin the president to white supremacy as their last-ditch effort to stop the movement which elected him.

The “alt-right” movement is not what makes up the Trump campaign.  White supremacists, Nazis, and the KKK radicals are all leftovers of southern Democrats and it is true that Hitler took notes from these people to advance his purge of Europe of people he didn’t want in his pure German society.  The people gathered in Charlottesville were all aspects of liberalism, the Black Lives Matters people were the hard-core communists while the Nazis were the socialists and the media framed them in their coverage as the extreme right and extreme left as if we all lived somewhere in between.  In that way they attempt to put us all into some crazy fringe of leftist radicalism and by default we must then defend our innocence from being too close to either of those fringe groups.  But, in reality, most of us are nowhere even near thinking like those two sides of the same idiotic coin.

Trump showed leadership early in the crises and it was a positive effort—in a sane world.  But we are not living in a sane world.  We are dealing with an evil that hides behind the pain and suffering of others to an extremity that is baffling to normal people.   It baffled me to see that evil so alive and desperate as they thought they had Trump pinned up against the ropes over doing what was expected of him during a crises. Trump didn’t say anything wrong. The skin heads, the communists, the people who wanted to take down the Robert E. Lee statue, the Mayor of Charlottesville, the Nazi lovers all the leftist losers who were in those city streets ready to fight for varying degrees of leftist philosophy were present to do damage and hurt others.  Trump had to be general in his statements given the level of evil present in Charlottesville.  Trump did the right thing—the media showed their real game plan perhaps too audaciously.

I’ve referred to it before but there is a wonderful scene from a great Akira Kurosawa film called Dreams where there are three mountain climbers caught in a snow storm high in the Himalayas.  They’ve lost their base camp in the storm and were dying in the extreme cold.  The leader found himself seduced by a beautiful ghost who came to his side to ease him into death.  She sings him to sleep gently and seductively pushing him into death.  But, being the leader that he was, he decides to fight back and once the ghost realizes that she’s not going to get her way, she turns into a skeleton and screams angrily at the leader then vanishes into oblivion.  Once gone, the storm clears and the leader is able to wake up his friends saving them from death as well.  As the sun came back out they realized that their base camp was always only about 20 feet away the whole time.  While they had only moments before been ready to die out of desperation, now they saw clearly that they were always so close to safety—but couldn’t see it for the chaos.  That is what we see happening, the demons of our lives are hiding in this chaos and now they have been exposed and are screaming out pain that they cannot get us to follow them to our death.  And in the aftermath of Charlottesville we will also see all along our base camp has always been right next to us.  When we do, as it’s being revealed right now, we will learn that it was never in between the communists and socialists but in the warm bed of conservatism which exists well to the right of the skin heads and Nazis.  That is where America lives and that is what Trump represents in our great republic, for which we stand.

Rich Hoffman

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The World is not Enough: Thank, God for Hasbro, Sphero, and Nerf

Every now and then I like to cover lighter topics that shed some hope for the human condition.  Occasionally I have written about my observations regarding the new cosplay phenomena and some of the very unique toys being made for kids from really great companies like Hasbro, Nerf and Sphero.  I have no problem admitting that when my wife drags me to the store for whatever reason—usually because she wants my company–that the place I always like to go first is the toy section to see what’s new there.  I have always enjoyed the inventiveness that comes with play and I think the world would be far better off if kids played more and for a longer period of time instead of rushing into puberty too quickly.  They should develop their minds longer than they do and after several discussions with my daughters who are now in their mid twenties I do have some hope that some of the inventiveness that is coming out in the toy markets and cosplay endeavors are the millennial’s generational self correction.

Any analysis into my love of Star Wars as a grown man would conclude that I find the people in those stories more interesting than real people.  The mythology of Star Wars as a whole has in it people I enjoy more than actual interactions.  Now some people might say that my view is unhealthy—that I shouldn’t set my bar for human interaction so high.  I would argue that society doesn’t set its bar for achievement high enough.  As a young person I always measured myself against the unrealistic expectations of the silver screen—not off the terrestrial limits of the real people in my life who I always felt were striving to be, “only human.”  They didn’t think big enough for me—the world they were offering was not enough.  And to a large degree millennials have grown up in broken homes with divorced insecure parents.  Their educations have been a joke and generally the world around them has been a tremendous let-down.  I mean who wants to grow up to be like John McCain? Anybody?  Or Maxine Waters?  How about a news anchor on any network?  Anybody want to be Chris Wallace?  If you have half a brain dear reader, you get my point.  So for their own survival millennials are doing to a larger degree what I always did, they turn to mythology where heroes and villains are larger than life and they base their standards for living off them instead of real people-because they innately recognize that they must do something to overcome the low expectations given to them by the lost generations which came before.

So that is the who and why all these fantastic toys and cosplay devices have emerged and specific to my interest is the Star Wars items from Nerf, Hasbro, and Sphero.   With Force Friday II coming up on September 1st 2017 where all the new Star Wars toys hit the shelves at Wal-Mart, Target and Toys R Us inventories that have been out there for a while since last year’s Rogue One movie is now at a very reduced price so my wife and I have been buying up things we’ve long been watching.  Specifically for me is the Hasbro At-ACT which came out last year for Rogue One but was over $300.  Hard for me to justify spending that kind of money on a toy, but lately it was marked down to $150 so we picked it up.  Another big thing we were able to pick up was the Sphero BB-8 robot which is driven off your smart phone.  In fact that’s what the AT-ACT and BB-8 have in common—both can move around on their own controlled off programming inputted into your iPhone which I think is just phenomenal.   The BB-8 robot from Sphero I think is a remarkable device and after finding it at Wal-Mart for half of its original $150 price tag I thought was a bargain.

For us, even though I enjoy the creativity on display in these new age toys if we didn’t have our grandkids over so much I wouldn’t have much of a desire to get them.  But, the kids are over a lot and I enjoy them immensely so when they are at my house we have all these very epic and expensive things to play with.  I remember how it was as a parent where luxuries were hard to come by and having all these expensive things to play with for the kids was difficult.  But as a grandparent we can afford to give the kids access to those kinds of things so we do, and I enjoy playing with the kids as they build up their brains with positive things I know will last a lifetime.  When kids play they don’t play to be a worthless bureaucrat or an average loser—they play to be a hero that saves the entire galaxy, that is the fantasy and it sets up in their minds the objective to reach for that high bar—even if it’s unrealistic.  It’s better to aim high than to not aim at all.  I also remember what it was like being a kid and I was a unique one.   I built models in the basement of our house very late into my teens and I had a large Star Wars toy collection that I played with until past the 8th grade.  I had a younger brother who had friends come over on Friday nights and we’d have massive Star Wars battles and honestly I found that a lot more fun than what was going on in real life.  I didn’t have any desire to drink, do drugs, use cuss words or play with girls.  The world I had in the basement of our house was far more interesting.  One of those younger kids who came over had a sister my age who was trying to fix me up with one of the prettiest girls in the 8th grade. She wanted me to go to the big homecoming dance with her after the football game.  This girl liked me a lot and had let me know that if I went to the dance with her that she’d let me do anything I wanted to her.  She was two years older than me and could drive.  Guess what I picked?  I chose playing Star Wars with the younger kids rather than messing around with that girl.  I never went to a single school dance until I was in my senior year and that was only to get a picture for my mom to put on her wall.   Many of my parents’ friends thought I was a weird kid so she wanted something to show that I wasn’t so strange.  In reality the toys were more interesting and I still love them to this day.   I can understand fully what cool toys and the freedom from guilt in playing with them can do for children.  I would say that now as an adult I am extremely well-adjusted and a very good problem solver.  I attribute a lot of that to developing my brain with a lot of play as a kid without the hassle of social pressure—like girls in the 8th grade and dances after football games.  Now as an adult with financial means, I do spoil my grandchildren for specifically those reasons—so they can feel the boundless joy of being a kid and discovering so many new things for the first time before life starts clamping down.  When life does clamp down, I want them to intellectually be ready.

And that’s why these toys are so much better than the toys from my youth, because Hasbro and Sphero aren’t just making them for kids.  They are making them for the many adults who now get past their 20s and aren’t interested in what the world has to offer.  As I think about this interesting aspect of our culture I can’t help but think of the James Bond movie The World is not Enough by the musical group Garbage.  That song captures this issue very well, the world is not enough because it doesn’t offer a big enough tapestry to project our hopes and dreams against—so many people find a relief from those limits by fulfilling their imaginations with these very sophisticated toys and these very creative companies understand and are rushing to fill that market need with some really spectacular offerings.  I always loved that song.  Needless to say I am impressed and continue to look forward to the next great thing to come from Hasbro and Sphero. That AT-ACT and the BB-8 droid are just fabulous and will bring a lot of joy to my house.  And I continue to look forward to what they come up with this year for Force Friday. I waited for some of these items for a few years so that the price would come down, but given the great utilization on display, maybe I won’t wait so long next time.

Rich Hoffman

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Sea World Needs Your Support: Don’t let CNN, PETA, and other radical organizations destroy it

It is a shame that the same forces who are attacking this present Trump administration and the positive outlook he has for a thriving America are the exact same attacking the Sea World Entertainment.  The attendance in the many parks they have around the nation, especially Orlando are down and have not recovered from the CNN hit job created by the PETA film Blackfish which has played on Netflix for several years now and has taken a major toll on park optimism.  In the case of Orlando specifically, as the competition from Universal Studios, Disney World and many other attractions in central Florida where people have to shell out $100 a ticket and spend over $1000 on a vacation experience they have steered away from Sea World because of all the negative press.  People don’t go to amusement parks, which Sea World is to feel bad about things.  They want optimism if they are going to spend that kind of money and the PETA crowd and their liberal sympathizers in the media have taken optimism away from the Sea World experience and put the very good company that does so much good for marine research on their heels foolishly.

http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/on-the-town/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2017/8/8/seaworld_revenue_attendance_down.html

We all know what PETA is, it’s the crazy chicks that take off their clothes in public and put on ridiculous displays of extreme foolishness to make their point of saving wildlife from the terrors of mankind.  They are usually kids right out of high school or old pot smoking hippies who are part of that “Earth First” crowd that wonder why Al Gore’s new movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power bombed at the box office.  That movie was so bad that it only made $1,495,661 during its opening two-week period starting on July 28th. It was a piece of crap propaganda film meant to evoke the heart-strings of the radical capitalist hating progressives.  The movie bombed because it sucked and was essentially a movie of progressive evangelicalism making nature a god to be worshiped with the same kind of flimsy justification of scholarship that those same people make fun of in Bible thumpers.

Sea World however doesn’t suck—it’s a really good company that does great things for the preservation and understanding of marine habitats.  They do a good job of balancing the needs of scientific understanding using capitalism to drive research—which is how things are supposed to work in America.  I’ve been to many of the Sea World parks and have always loved them.  Their presence in Orlando enhances that city tremendously.   I love visiting the Orlando airport where all the amusement parks scream for attention.  I cannot imagine a Orlando without their buses and signs painted up with the images of killer whales.   With all the fantasy offered by Universal Studios and Disney, Sea World offers a nice blend of entertainment and science which heightens the intellectual experience of the entire Orlando area.  Unfortunately times have been tough in Orlando.  People are still spending money and visiting the parks there but Universal Studios has been literally killing it with their Harry Potter attraction and other very good offerings such as Kong: Skull Island which is simply a phenomenal experience worthy of a trip to Florida all by itself. Then of course Disney has their Avatar Land which just opened this year and the promise of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is coming rapidly.  Those parks have done a great job of staying fresh as the entertainment market for amusement parks has shifted dramatically in recent years to these “experiences.”  Meanwhile Sea World has had to fend off these crazy attacks essentially by CNN who has went on mission to literally torpedo the company to appease their PETA base of supporters at the left leaning cable company.   Instead of fighting CNN, Sea World should have been doing their own versions of those experiences and they are late to the party.  Finally they will have a Sesame Street Land in 2022 which will help, but that’s just too far off for them at this point.  They needed to be opening something like that in 2018 to maintain their market viability.  This attack on them really has not been fair to the good work they have always done in bringing marine life to millions of children over many decades.

To understand this “experience” trend in amusement parks and how big it is for market share it was obvious to me at my local park of Kings Island in Mason, Ohio.  Their newest attraction is a wooden roller coaster called Mystic Timbers which has a kind of Indiana Jones meets the Blair Witch theme to the experience and it’s very effective.  Kings Island has done a good job of keeping itself fresh over the years and has really blossomed under the care of Cedar Fair Amusements which runs Cedar Point up in northern Ohio.  The benefit that Cedar Fair has is that their business is purely thrill rides whereas Sea World is actually about education.  Sea World has some great thrill rides such as the Kraken which reopened just this year with a major overhaul featuring a VR ride that is quite spectacular.  But the essence of their market is education based which is a tough sell these days with all the glitter offered to consumers with extremely short attention spans and not much money in their pockets from wage stagnation.

Sea World used to be a destination vacation experience.  When I was a kid we went to the one in Aurora, Ohio well before it was closed down and I looked forward to it all summer.   It was a big deal to me and I loved the Orca shows and learned a lot about marine life that is still my foundation for that topic to this day.  Now that I have grand children I want to be able to take them to the park in Orlando and give them a similar experience.  However, Sea World is falling behind in the competitive battle to stay relevant in a capitalist society because of these attacks against it which is a shame.  Clearly we are not all one America and so long as these radical losers exist in our society who would even think to attack such a good company then there will continue to be strife over every little thing between us—just as there is under the Trump presidency.  All this started when that other side felt empowered under the Obama White House.  Sea World had an accident that was truly difficult for them and is part of the danger of their business.  But instead of providing support the radicals attacked and sought to put the company out of business and that is just despicable.

I would say that if you are thinking of taking a vacation and are going to the Orlando area dear reader, or any of the other locations that Sea World has around the country, you should make a point to visit them and put some money in their pockets.  Sea World could use the help.  The work they do is too valuable to ignore and it costs a lot of money to run an operation of live sea creatures the way they do.  Disney World at the end of the day turns off their rides and powers down their attractions. Sea World has to feed all those animals so their expenses are much different from other thrill park attractions yet that is the market they must compete in.  I’ve never been to Sea World where I didn’t have a good time and learn something fresh—or felt that the cost of admission wasn’t worth it.  So if you love optimism, science and capitalism—then you should support Sea World.  They are the Donald Trump’s of the theme park world and are being attacked essentially for being good.  And we shouldn’t allow that to happen to them.

Rich Hoffman

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