Tag: MAGA

Gavin Newsom is Lost: Why Democrats have nobody like Trump

Gavin Newsom has been in the news frequently lately, and he has something to say about almost everything.  And nobody believes any of it.  As governor of California, and this isn’t a political comment, just a logical one, he lost all credibility during COVID and has barely managed to hang on despite several challenges in a state that leaned far left, when it was fashionable.  But we are talking now about a world where Democrats have lost around 2.5 million registered voters and Republicans have gained about as many, and that is just a few months into Trump’s second presidency.  Gavin Newsom is a phony, like many politicians who have gotten away with it over the years, and if politics hadn’t changed as much as we’ve seen, Newsom could probably be considered a candidate for president in 2028, which he clearly aspires to be.  However, he has a poor track record, culminating in the LA fires.  But it was the way he handled COVID that set his future in stone.  The people in California won’t let him live it down, let alone a national campaign.  COVID-19 changed many people and the way they think about politics.  Today’s baby-kissing politician could be tomorrow’s lockdown governor violating all our personal rights over some virus released from China.  And of all the lockdown governors, Gavin Newsom was one of the worst.  It’s almost comical to watch him now trying to build a campaign for the Democrat Party’s presidential nomination.  That is obviously what his plans are, but the political order changed under his feet, and he seems lost to capture any message, because all the old stuff just isn’t working.  The buzzwords have died, and he has no new ones to offer.  Leaving him bouncing around from topic to topic aimlessly. 

The difference between President Trump and everyone else is essentially authenticity.  Trump can drop an F bomb during a speech, and people can relate to it.  Gavin Newsom can do the same, and people perceive it as insincere.  And that’s what’s new now, Trump is a product of the times and the people.  Politicians like Gavin Newsom are completely do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do types who count completely on manipulating the public to exist.  And people are too battle-hardened to accept that premise anymore.  And, there is too much media these days for shaky commentary.  With all the podcasts and startup news shows, especially on Trump’s Truth Social media platform, politicians like Gavin Newsom cannot withstand the constant scrutiny.  In the past, when there were only a few news stations and some talk radio to discuss these topics, Newsom got away with having a shiny exterior because there was never any time to get into the details.  But not these days.  And Trump has shown the world what a real person in a powerful position can accomplish.  And nobody the Democrats have will be able to duplicate it.  And Newsom is among the best that the Democrats have to offer.  They have big problems that are worth considering.  Watching Newsom try to adjust is actually very revealing because it points to a much deeper problem for all Democrats.  Why don’t they have their own version of Trump?  Well, because the new standards require authenticity as a person, not the kind of showboating that was once accepted as usual.  And Democrats as a party have sought to exploit people through emotions.  They have not actually done anything.  The world is looking for doers, not more administrative types who lock down their states, then get caught at social gatherings drinking wine as the world burns down outside. 

Gavin Newsom, in a remarkably short time, as he has been trying everything to capture a national audience, has appeared on the Charlie Kirk Show, attempting to appeal to Trump voters, and has since turned to the radical left, becoming as anti-Trump as anyone could be.  He’s tried to be overly friendly, radically mean, even violent, trying to draw a crowd.  And it’s just not working.  And that’s the main problem.  With Trump, nobody doubts what he’s thinking, and he built that brand over a long time with constant repetition.  Gavin Newsom has changed many times, and nobody really knows who he is, because he’s so inconsistent on topics.  I recall when Gavin Newsom was one of the first to join Trump’s Truth Social platform, going where voters who wouldn’t vote for him were, and trying to win them over.  He has maintained a relationship with Sean Hannity to appear more appealing.  He has tried to debate DeSantis, and that didn’t work well.  He’s tried everything, and nothing has worked, leaving him scrambling now that the clock is ticking toward the midterms and Democrats are bleeding support.  Not gaining any.  And this isn’t just a Newsom problem, but a party problem that even Republicans have.  Politics has changed a lot over the last five years, since establishment types tried to exile Trump and his supporters forever.  And what ended up happening was that it strengthened, and a new standard was set that few politicians who came before could follow.  What is going on behind the scenes is literally revealed in the nervous hand movements of Newsom, which are evident during interviews and give away a lot that nobody sees when the cameras aren’t rolling. 

In sales, it’s a fine line between enthusiasm and overemphasis.  And when someone knows they are selling something that people don’t want, they have to resort to body language to emotionally pull the people they are talking to past the doubt phase, and into the subconscious utterances of hand movements.  Using the hands a lot in communication is an attempt to remind the person you are talking to that you could grab them forcefully and make them listen to you.  Excessive hand movement is a big no in communication, as it forces the people listening to put up emotional barriers. And if the person using hand movements is trying to lie or manipulate an audience, it becomes quickly exposed by overplaying the situation.  In Trump’s case, he believes in the products he has sold, so his communication works, and people can feel it.  With Newsom, he clearly doesn’t, as he is constantly changing his positions and approach.  He doubts it himself, so he tries to hide it with excessive hand movements.  And instinctively, people think of his hands as something that is trying to attack them, so they put up barriers to that reception.  It’s a major turnoff for people listening to a politician like that.  In the past, the media would cover the distance, but they can no longer do so, as they have lost their power too.  There are many differences now compared to when Newsom first started as governor.  And it will only get worse for him and all Democrats.  And Democrats have nobody else but Newsom.  There isn’t anybody coming up in the background.  All the buzzword politics have worn out, leaving them completely unprepared.  And that desperation in messaging is now showing itself in rapid succession.  All they have is an attempt to tear down President Trump and his accomplishments.  They have nothing to offer as a replacement.  And in knowing that, they have a desperate message that can’t go anywhere, and is losing support by the day.  And even worse, their track record is horrendous, especially in California.  Blue states and cities have performed poorly, so Democrats have a lot of huge problems.  And after all that we’ve been through to get here, it’s actually fun to watch. 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Fed’s 2% Inflation to Lower Wage Rates: Micromanaging employers and causing quite a mess

There is a dirty little secret that the Federal Reserve has about its role in mass society that needs to be discussed in relation to interest rates and what it considers managed inflation.  The Fed recently met at its annual Jackson Hole meeting, and it reminded me of many things, particularly the time when my grandkids wanted chicken nuggets from McDonald’s and their dining room was closed.  We were in my RV, so the only way to place an order and collect the food was to use the drive-thru window, which I barely fit through.  The McDonald’s in Jackson Hole is very close to where the Fed meets against the backdrop of the Teton mountains.  For a tourist town with one of the largest concentrations of wealth in the world, it’s a small McDonald’s with a pretty small parking lot.  Certainly not RV friendly.  However, I managed to make it work with less than an inch on all sides of my vehicle, and it’s a story that has gained a lot of popularity in my family.  “Remember that time grandpa did this?”  And everyone says, “Which one?” because there are a lot of things to talk about.  The town itself is one of my favorites, and I can understand why all the bank presidents who are members of the Fed want to meet there to discuss monetary policy.  It’s a really good place to go and is America’s version of Geneva, Switzerland.  I think the Tetons are better, though.  So after the Fed meeting there, Jerome Powell indicated he was going to do what I said he was going to have to do, and what J.P. Morgan had been pressing for, along with President Trump, and that was the Fed was going to lower interest rates.  Not happily, but because they have to.  The economy is too good to hide phony interest rate profits for the banks behind artificial inflation numbers meant to frighten the world away from Trump’s presidency. 

However, there is another issue at play that we need to address regarding employment.  The Fed believes that in managing money, it must bake in 2% inflation per year because that is the only way to offset the erosion of wages that employers provide to employees, which dilutes the actual value of labor.  Because the Fed believes, which is one of the reasons for its existence, that employers will not incur the hard cost of paying employees less for their labor as they age and become less valuable.  Therefore, the Fed believes that it must step in and manage the economy because employers won’t do so on their own.  Often, when a company gets out of step with its cost structure, it has an obligation to reduce its costs, either through a reduction in force or wage cuts.  However, most employers are hesitant to lose their legacy talent and invest a significant amount of money in retaining them, when in reality, they should consider letting them go on the open market and replace them with cheaper and younger workers.  The NFL has to do this all the time with salary caps, which are imposed on teams to keep them fresh and relevant.  If a player wants to leave a team for more money, then that team can turn to free agency to replace that player.  If the market wants to pay a lot for that experienced player, they certainly can, but there is a salary cap, so that team won’t be able to pay a lot to other workers as well. 

That’s why we should operate in America with some gold standard, because value has to be protected. Instead of the Fed having the temptation to print more money, it would micromanage the economy with continuous infusions of cash, ultimately diminishing its buying power and hiding the inflation it creates in the process.  And try to hide it behind other economic conditions as a justification, which had worked until Trump came along and called the Fed’s bluff.  And because the Fed believes that free market pressures won’t manage the economy effectively, they have baked into all their assumptions about economic flow that they must micromanage employers who won’t trim their fat with inflated wage rates at their companies, as they fear losing talent to their competition.  So, the Fed bakes 2% inflation into everything.  That’s why, when reviews are conducted with employees, a standard minimum of 2% is required to maintain your wage value at the same level as the previous year.  The trick is that as you get older, you actually lose buying power in most cases because inflation eats up whatever increases you manage to get for yourself.  The goal is for Americans to earn less over their working years, not more, because the actual value of labor must be managed by the Fed, which introduces all kinds of problems, as it’s not really employers who are the problem.  That is just the excuse that the Fed applies to cover a lot of liberal politics, for which they are prone.  Labor unions, for instance, are very guilty of propping up wage rates that are artificially too high, which then feeds the Fed’s argument for mass micromanagement of the economy with incremental inflation to let people believe they are being paid a certain amount on paper, but in truth, the money is worth a lot less.  People don’t notice because it happens over time.  However, every three years, at a minimum, workers lose 6% of their buying power if they do not receive raises in their pay that are well above 2%.  To receive an actual 2% raise, employees would need to obtain a 4% raise with each yearly evaluation.  Which certainly isn’t the case for most people. 

Consider the problem at the McDonald’s in Jackson Hole that I mentioned, which had its drive-thru window closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  And the government was pushing for a minimum wage increase that inflated the real value for entry-level jobs, such as McDonald’s workers making $15 per hour, when the real value for their jobs is likely under $10.  When politicians interfere in the process of manipulating market values, the Fed must attempt to cover up the mess with interest rate hikes to conceal the inflation it creates, which often exceeds 2%.  Our goal with inflation should be zero, and if we held it to the gold standard, it would have to be.  These are the problems you get when you let pin-headed bureaucrats micromanage an economy with Marxist ideas instead of free market capitalism, and it’s a real problem.  So Jerome Powell knows all this and is reluctant to lower interest rates, even though all the parts of the economy that they usually hide behind at those Jackson Hole meetings are too good, forcing his hand.  So he’s not happy about it.  But a lot is coming that he won’t be pleased about.  There has been a significant amount of tampering that has impacted wage rates, and employers have not been the primary source of the issue.  It’s too much administrative mess that comes from the Fed, and short-term politicians who have caused all the problems.  McDonald’s workers, like the one in Jackson Hole, should not have employees making over $20 per hour.  Wal-Mart should not have employees making $20 to $25 per hour because all other labor has had to increase their wage rates to obtain workers.  But the money is all on paper.  People are not actually making those actual wage rates because the Fed has had to hide the impact through inflation.  And now they are being forced to lower interest rates, which will expose the whole mess.  Although the meeting in Jackson Hole might have been very scenic, it wasn’t enjoyable.  There will be a lot more to happen with monetary policy in the coming months.  And the Fed is going to lose a lot more control, as they very well should. 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Woke Museums of Washington D.C.: Why the Museum of the Bible is different

I’m sure I will visit the new museum that just opened in Cairo, Egypt, which cost over a spectacular $ 1 billion.  I love museums and have been to several around the world.  They are to me like books that tell a story about a significant moment in history, and there are always interesting things to consider in the context of a museum that assembles information to put forth a point of view.  I’m sure the new one in Egypt will be fantastic.  However, in that context, the Museum Center in Cincinnati, I think, is great as well, and it’s a place I like to visit frequently for many of the same reasons.  However, for me personally, the Museum of the Bible is a very special place in Washington, D.C., and one of my favorite destinations.  There are many great museums in Washington, D.C., including the Smithsonian and the National Geographic Museum, both of which are located there.  So when President Trump called out the various woke museums like the Smithsonian as targeted to change their ways as part of his reform of Washington D.C. culture, what is he talking about?  And I would point to the Museum of the Bible as the answer, as it was created by very passionate people, such as the ownership of Hobby Lobby and many others, who put forth a lot of effort to make the place really something special.  But why was it so much better than the other area museums for which Washington, D.C. is known?  Well, it all comes down to wokeness and how modern political spins on information provided tend to water down the experience for everyone.  And people don’t like it.  However, the Museum of the Bible is remarkably free of any woke influences, and this is noticeable upon entering and leaving, a place that has truly captured the spirit of what a museum should be and the impact a good one can have on visitors. 

The Museum of the Bible is just a few blocks away from Capitol Hill and the Mall, home to many well-known museums.  But on the way to it, when walking through the parking garage just to the west of the main entrance, a woman of color was in the elevator with my wife and me, and she noticed a particular glow of enthusiasm from us, and she asked about it.  “You guys are going to the Museum of the Bible,” she asked, smiling.  “Well, yes, we are as a matter of fact,” I said.  “How did you know?”  She was smiling, but she was a rough-looking, large woman with neck tattoos who looked like she had been living in an urban jungle for quite some time.  However, she said that the Museum of the Bible was her favorite place and that she was happy for us to experience it.  Now this wasn’t just a bunch of people happy about a museum dedicated to a religious experience.  The Museum of the Bible is dedicated to the most significant literary achievement ever produced on earth.  But it’s the way it’s presented that carries the most significance toward lasting appeal and makes it more than just another museum for most people.  I was very impressed with it.  It wasn’t trying to convince me of anything, as most museums saturated with wokeness do.  It was just proud of what it was, and it offered to let people share in that pride without pretension.  It enables you to enjoy it for all its glory without further explanation. 

And that’s what makes The Museum of the Bible special: it lacks woke references.  It wasn’t about being close to God or unashamed of biblical references that the outside world might attempt to impose on free minds.  It was authentic and put together with a genuine love of the subject, and was just a bit more than the usual museum because of it.  The displays are good, but more than that, the architecture, down to the kind of paint used, was very well put together.  The people working there came across as genuinely loving the place; they weren’t just workers fulfilling mandates for a paycheck.  I also noticed that the museum in the basement of the Capitol Building had just been reopened, and it was really good, which surprised me coming out of a recent Biden administration where wokeness was a big issue.  It was a nice museum, and my wife and I spent a lot of time there watching votes from the House on the big screens in real time.  It was put together well by people obviously passionate about the subject matter.  So the common theme here is not religious, but passion.  And once propaganda of a modern political nature is infused into the subject, people have a natural revulsion to it.  That is one of the significant criticisms of the Smithsonian and National Geographic, which have been trying to present a Charles Darwin view of science, despite evidence pointing to many other contributing factors.  It’s the authenticity of the presentation that elevates sentiment to a higher status.  And woke presentations that are filled with modern political propaganda are something that people naturally reject.  Evidence is what museums put forth.  However, interpreting that evidence in a way that advances a political narrative, if the public is not naturally inclined to agree, is a sure way to push people away, which is what has recently happened to Cracker Barrel and many other trusted commercial endeavors that have tried to embrace woke trends.  The public naturally rejects them.

The Smithsonian and National Geographic are both dedicated to science, which I love to see.  But they are terribly woke and progressive.  And the Smithsonian has been accused of censoring evidence, such as the massive amount of evidence that giant skeletons in the mounds of North America indicate a society that predates what many call Native Americans.  The real native Americans go back much further than the Indians of modern politics, and people can smell a phony that the Smithsonian is trying to steer evidence toward a political sentiment, and that is the case that America was built on stolen land from indigenous people.  And rather than let the evidence tell the story for itself, the museum tells you a fake story, and you are supposed to accept it.  And museums that push civil rights issues from a Democrat perspective, when it was Democrats who were slave owners and it was Republicans who stopped slavery, come across as phony because the material presented attempts to glaze over the facts that are culturally well known.  And that is why woke doesn’t work and why Trump is pushing woke behavior away from everything he can, especially woke museums like the Smithsonian.  America has a rich history, and museums should tell the story without the desire to steer the public in a direction that validates certain political views.  If there were giants on Earth in the form of very tall people, predating what we call “Indians,” then let’s discuss that and examine the evidence.  However, suppose we propose something that contradicts logic. In that case, the public will be uncomfortable and even resistant to enjoying it, which is the problem with ‘woke’ everywhere it is presented, in music, movies, restaurants, and even museums.  Wokeness as a propaganda tool was never going to work, and when we see things like The Museum of the Bible, which is wonderfully woke-free, we reward them with our time and attention.

Rich Hoffman

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

Jennifer Gross Goes to Washington: The importance of redistricting

When I say that Jennifer Gross is not very well-liked, I mean it in the manner of a compliment.  I think it’s a great asset to have people who don’t like you or who are very angry when your name is brought up.  Many people certainly dislike President Trump.  And I would say that I am one of the most hated people in the world.  People typically like you when you do what they want you to do, and their acceptance of you in some way is the way they gain leverage over your authenticity.  So, that makes Jennifer Gross an effective politician in a dynamic intellectual sense, where a static order has to compete, and they don’t like it.  In Ohio, Jennifer is my Representative in the 45th district, and she works hard to do so; I appreciate people who work hard.  And in the course of that work, she found herself in Washington, D.C. with Lee Zeldon, director of the EPA under Trump’s administration, asking questions directly to him about an issue I have been very concerned with regarding the EPA.  I would say that among Trump supporters and people who dislike RINOs, Jennifer Gross is very popular, so it depends on the crowd and what they want out of relationships, which often determines likeability.  I believe cordial relationships can be a liability.  However, it was interesting to hear about Jennifer’s trip to Washington, D.C., where she met with several Trump administration officials, including RFK, over MAHA issues.  So, once her plan was in place, Jennifer and I discussed a number of topics that we would typically talk about.  However, for this audience, I happened to record it so that others could share in the experience.  And, as much as I am concerned about the EPA issue, the conversation we had, which came straight from the Trump administration, was about the need for redistricting. 

The primary thing that Jennifer wanted to tell me about the Trump administration was that they weren’t a bunch of phonies.  The people working for Trump were all successful individuals in their own right, who could take or leave other politicians.  Jennifer can relate because she has always been very independent when it comes to politics, and that makes it hard for her to deal with when it comes to deal-making.  Much of politics is a collaborative effort, and I know several people I would call good friends who spend a lot of time collaborating with other politicians, only to accomplish a fraction of their wants and needs individually.  But that’s part of the process, and one of the reasons I thought the Trump presidency would be a good thing was his self-control over his wealth and ability to walk away from anything he didn’t like.  And his administration is very much the real deal, and Jennifer was pleased to report that they were not a bunch of phonies like we often learn people really are once these political campaigns are over.  So she couldn’t wait to tell me how authentic people like Lee Zeldon, Secretary Kennedy, and Commerce Secretary Lutnick were in real life.  It’s not usual to have people like this in any administration, and to meet them in real life after the honeymoon is over for Trump, doing everyday work, it was good to hear that they are everything they say they are.  Politically, many people dislike them as well, but, as all successful people must learn, that comes with the territory. 

The primary concern on everyone’s mind is the fairness of redistricting, so that Republicans can have more seats in Congress.  There are a few that we can pick up in Ohio, and several other states. The Trump administration is playing hardball on this issue, as it should.  Trump is right, Republicans should not play nice with Democrats over any election issues.  If we genuinely want a representative republic, which is what we are, we must trust the American people to choose who they want to represent them.  Not what a party wants us to adopt for their convenience.  That’s where things get tricky with playing nice to get along, and being a stick to poke in the eye of those who are too quick to compromise.  My point in the matter is that there is room for people like Jennifer Gross in politics and room for plenty of mainstreamers who enjoy the process of collaboration, if we didn’t have such a close margin of majorities.  I think that if we had guarded our elections more closely, there would be 60-plus Republican votes in the Senate and over +50 in Congress.  It is only close in America because of election fraud, and Democrat gerrymandering for many years has given them the appearance of a 50/50 country, when actually it’s a long way from being so.  Democrats are a minority party at best, filled with misfits and broken toys.  It’s one thing to have compassion for their poor state.  It’s quite another to have them destroy our entire society to appear fair.  In Ohio, there are 15 congressional seats, and Republicans have 10 of them.  There are opportunities in Ohio to improve upon that, and without question, Republicans should.  Don’t listen to the cries of Democrats, play hardball and defeat them everywhere. 

And if we did that, as Republicans, the world would be a lot better off.  As Jennifer and I discussed after her trip to Washington, fairness, or the appearance of it, often leads to inauthentic corruption, and righteous representation usually falls by the wayside as people who pay money for representation in the form of lobbyists end up running our government from the shadows.  And that is what we have been trying to get away from.  It’s what I always hoped would be the case from independently wealthy people like Trump, Secretary Lutnick, Zeldon, and Kennedy —that they would do the job for the right reasons. They could make a lot of money if they weren’t in politics.  However, as successful people, they can best represent the public that needs it.  And through redistricting, we can elect more people like that in the future, which would properly represent our actual society.  We don’t have an obligation to play nice with people who want to destroy our country.  And we owe Democrats no illusion of fairness.  If we can secure an additional 20 seats for the 2026 midterms, then let’s do it.  Meanwhile, it’s good to hear that Jennifer was being treated with sincerity by the Trump administration and that doing the right things for the right reasons was more than just an empty promise by politicians who usually disappoint us.  If too many people like you, that’s usually a bad sign, and that’s the case in any level of society.  And the Trump administration couldn’t care less; they can afford to be independent of such popularity concerns.  And because of that, they can actually accomplish some things.  Based on Jennifer’s report, they are willing to do the work and are solid in the promise category.  And these days, that is a scarce commodity.  One area we could significantly improve if we were more aggressive with redistricting. 

Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman

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

The Cracker Barrel Remarketing Plan Was A Horrible Decision: Betting on the wrong horse, which the Board who hired Julie Felss Masino certainly did

I think there needs to be context to this whole Cracker Barrel thing and the hiring of Julie Felss Masino, the CEO who has caused so much trouble.  The board of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc. consists of a board of directors that includes, Carl Berquist, Chairman a former Marriott CFO with decades of financial experience, Jody Bilney who just joined in 2022 and as previously a senior executive at Humana and Bloomin’ Brands, Steve Bramlage, just elected to the board in May of 2025 and current CFO at Casey’s General Stores, Gilbert Davaila who joined in 2020 and runs a multicultural marketing firm and has Disney experience, John Garratt, who joined in 2023 and is the former CFO and president at Dollar General, Michael Goodwin, who joined in 2024 and was a retired PetSmart tech executive with cybersecurity expertise, Cheryl Henry who joined in 2024 and is the former CEO of Ruth’s Chris Steak House.  Julie Felss Masino, the current CEO, was appointed to the board in November 2023, and Gisel Ruiz joined in 2020 as a former executive from Walmart and Sam’s Club.  Since 2019, traffic through Cracker Barrel restaurants has been down 20%. They have never fully recovered from their previous pandemic numbers, and this very woke board obviously wanted to try to boost sales and freshen things up to recover that lost traffic, which they thought was dying off.  A large portion of the Cracker Barrel customer base is literally aging out and dying off, and young people have not replaced them.  This group of characters set out to figure out how to return to the good old days and attract new customers.  Hiring Masino, who had 30 years of experience, including leading Taco Bell’s international growth to over 1000 locations, and had roles at Starbucks, which made her what they thought of as a good fit for driving innovation to the Cracker Barrel brand, came in with a lot of ideas that the customers just don’t like.   

So, it’s not enough to blame the current CEO of Cracker Barrel for the truly radical makeover that Old Country Stores have been experiencing.  Changing the paint scheme of the traditionally log cabin look of the restaurants from dark brown to a kind of soft white was a bad start.  And the interior decorating, rooted in tradition, was not a good move because it took away the ‘going to Grandma’s house’ kind of vibe that made going to Cracker Barrel while traveling far from home such a positive experience.  Comments about the Country Store entrance being less congested with stuff have fallen into the joke category because the response is that the store is less crowded. After all, it has fewer customers, and as a result, that’s what’s going to happen to the Cracker Barrel brand now that they have the perception of going woke.  So of course it’s less crowded.  I assess that Cracker Barrel hired too many woke individuals and let them onto the board, and that they are getting what they deserve.  That cast of characters, the Board at Cracker Barrel, mostly come from very woke backgrounds, and people of tradition would reject any change they would make. They underestimated what their real problems were.  Many companies have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels, which is something that we don’t discuss nearly enough. The answer that people trained in woke leadership, who are often the who’s who of corporate America, are not intellectually equipped to deal with the real problem.  In the case of Cracker Barrel, they are pricing themselves out of the market.  I go there frequently, and I can’t make a stop without spending $100 to $200 with my family every time.  And the price of the food should be around 30% less than that. 

Most of Cracker Barrel’s customer base is blue-collar and does not have a lot of money to spend on price increases, which is one reason for their declining traffic.  Financially, they are in trouble, with revenue at $3.47 billion but a net income of only $40.9 million.  And this overhaul, which has sparked widespread anger, will cost $700 million through 2027, with $180 million allocated through 2025 alone.  This is a board of directors that bet big on the wrong attributes and now their mistake is going to cost them tragically.  They have now far bigger problems than just some bad press.  They picked the wrong things to stimulate their customer base, which was obvious when Julie Felss Masino tried to go on Good Morning America and say that Cracker Barrel wasn’t going away, they still had the fireplace, the rocking chairs on the front porch, and the little triangle game to play while everyone waits for their food.  If those are the things she thinks Cracker Barrel is to customers, then she wildly missed the mark, and based on their financials, it’s a gamble that Cracker Barrel couldn’t afford to misdiagnose.  Cracker Barrel hired Masino to do just what she is doing.  The problem is that they all missed the heart of the real problem and pushed away their old audience in favor of a new one that would reject the product anyway.  Young people from many broken homes do not have traditional experiences with grandmas’ house, as previous generations did, so they are not attracted to the family tradition appeal.  However, many of them wanted that experience, and for them, going to Cracker Barrel was the only way they could achieve it. 

Many of those board members had no idea that Trump would be elected as president in 2024.  These decisions to change all these Cracker Barrel stores were already in place when he stepped back into the White House.  So, to the minds of many corporate types, nobody could have predicted that America was going to turn so hard toward the MAGA political movement.  Nobody really knew what was going to happen.  Well, I take that back a bit.  I knew what was going to happen.  But very few people listened much to their doom.  I predicted everything 100% correct, just for the record.  And if Cracker Barrel’s Board had listened, they would not be in the trouble they are in now.  The best thing for them to do would have been to dig into their traditional appeal and openly cater to the MAGA political base, because those are their customers.  To regain 20% of the lost customers from 2019, it’s essential to focus on pricing and expansion among conservative types who cannot afford to dine at the restaurant while traveling.  Going for a new demographic group was not the right move here.  And now, because they have adopted the woke approach, which many of the board members are trained to be very woke, and they hired their CEO to embrace the Biden and Obama-era political movements, they are getting what they thought they would.  But people don’t like it.  And there is no way to repair that now.  Once you lose a brand, such as what Disney is currently experiencing, and many other companies that have aligned themselves incorrectly with the MAGA movement and Trump as an America First president, you can never truly regain it.  And Cracker Barrel will lose a lot more than 20% of its customer base.  With a profit of only $45 million to deal with, they don’t have enough margin to lose 1% more.  So this reaction to their marketing plan to overhaul their image is much more disastrous than the media is reporting.  And it’s a shame because I have liked Cracker Barrel more than any other brand in that market sector.  But, I will find other alternatives, just as many others will too.  This was a poor decision by the Cracker Barrel Board to be so tone-deaf about changing political circumstances.  They bet on the wrong horse and will now lose big. 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Government Robbery of 1933: Removing the gold standard was always a mistake

It’s always been about who controls the money, and in 1913, when the Fed convinced a group of starry-eyed congresspeople to relinquish their Article I, Section 8 powers to coin money to a group of bankers to manage the money, they made a significant mistake.  And, of course, we are discussing this now as we contemplate why Jerome Powell, the current head of the Federal Reserve, has interest rates so high and is artificially holding back the flow of money to the public.  Should or could President Trump fire him?  And why is there a claim of independence that Janet Yellen asserts is necessary for the Fed to function correctly?  She used to be the chairman, as Jerome Powell is now, and she was the economic lady for Biden’s administration.  She is also a prominent member of the World Economic Forum, placing her at the heart of this modern discussion.  The answer to all this Fed talk is that, of course, Trump should and could fire Powell.  Because Powell has not performed well, now that Trump has created an environment where the economy is moving along nicely, the excuses that the Fed hides typically behind to control the levers of power over the money supply have been taken away.  The only people making money from the Fed’s system are the banks, whose interest rates are holding back economic growth.  And of course, the banks don’t want to give up that easy money.  So, for his sabotage of the current economy, Trump should fire him.  The Fed’s mess in 1913 was a mistake, and it’s time to admit it.  Because what happened 20 years later with FDR in the White House would well cross the line toward poor money management, which is a crime that still looms.  And we have to correct it. 

If we had our money connected to a gold standard, BlackRock would not own all these properties

On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, which required U.S. citizens to surrender most of their gold bullion, coins, and certificates to the government by May of that same year, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce.  This was just as bad as a buy-back program for something like personal firearms.  The reason for the order was to unleash money into the supply that people were hoarding and let the government manage the depression.  However, looking back on history, the Great Depression was caused by excessive government intervention, which exacerbated the problem it was trying to fix by taking people’s ownership of gold and unleashing it into the economy, thereby loosening things up.  Now, this was the Red Decade, when communist ideas were being experimented with, following the Roaring Twenties, which had a lot of open capitalism.  Communist movements were widespread, and they certainly infiltrated Roosevelt’s administration.  But how could this arrangement work, where the Fed was given everyone’s personal gold reserves, and where did they get the money to buy it?  Well, they printed the money, just as they did after the 2008 crisis, and gave that money to Larry Fink to essentially buy up bad loans with quantitative easing.  In the case of 1933, they were able to make some money off the deal and profit from the exchange.  But the Fed got the money by essentially printing it.  And it was this critical step that would take America off the gold standard by 1971.  After that, gold would become a commodity with no inherent value.  The goal of the Fed was to remove the stabilizing grounding gold provided to the economy, where people were regulating that value off a common exchange.  Instead, the government sought to empower centralized bankers with the ability to micromanage the economy, decisively removing the process from any free market consideration —a move that was distinctly communist and remains a mistake we are still dealing with to this day. 

By removing America from the gold standard, the Fed gained significant centralized power that it had previously been unable to achieve. This power was acquired after the Fed confiscated people’s wealth and issued banknotes that would, from then on, have a value adjusted by the Fed’s actions.  This was to protect the global international bankers, who have long sought to rule the world from the shadows.  And they are still a serious menace to this very day.  This is essentially what opened the door to Modern Monetary Theory and enabled individuals like Larry Fink to accumulate significant power at BlackRock.  The money managers who laundered the money through Wall Street were able to take all that printed money and buy up bad debt, thereby gaining control of the boards of numerous United States companies.   And Larry Fink is a bleeding heart liberal, otherwise known as a communist.  The original crime was the creation of the Fed in 1913, but the robbery took place in 1933 when the Fed, under FDR, took everyone’s private gold and replaced it with a monetary system that would fluctuate over time at an inflation rate of at least 2.5% per year.  So, doing nothing with that original $20.67, it would take $513.46 today to buy just as much.  But if grandpa had given you that much in gold, the value would still be relatively the same.  Taking away the gold standard meant that if Grandpa gave us $20.67 in 1933, and you wanted to buy something, it would now cost you $513.46 to buy the same thing. 

Deep in the heart of many things that members of the Federal Reserve believe is that employers are reluctant to reduce the wages of their employees over time.  They may receive raises, but in terms of real buying power, the Fed believes that it must step in to offset the value of increasing paychecks due to employer reluctance.  So long as they control the value of money, they can micromanage all factors of our economy in ways that are not driven by market value.  In the case of pay, which we all experience, we might make an average of 2% increases over our lifetime, but the Fed is using purposeful inflation to take that value away as we age giving our buying power much less with the same dollars because they believe that actual productivity goes down as we age, so we should not continue to get more money for doing less work.  That kind of thinking would only come out of the Red Decade.  And it has now caused a lot of significant problems that we need to address under this new Trump administration.  And Jerome Powell is going to have to go.  Reluctantly, but critically, he will have to lower Fed interest rates in September and maintain them through up to Christmas in 2025, because the pressure will be too great.  Trump’s economy is forcing everyone to come clean, and people are figuring out how the game has been played against them.  We can’t have foreign centralized bankers controlling our money supply through our Federal Reserve.  And the Fed can’t be independent of representative management.  They have been openly robbing our money supply, and it’s time for all that to stop.  The 1933 confiscation of personal ownership of gold was a form of open government theft, and it should never have happened because it empowered centralized bankers to gain control over the dollar and use it to access power. Today, banks have way too much power.  And we have to take it away from them by force.  Because they won’t give that power back now, they will have to be made to.  But we have no choice. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Getting Rid of Mail-in Ballots: If Trump had been in office, millions of lives would have been saved

I was pleased to see that President Trump was moving forward with an executive order to initiate the process of removing mail-in ballots from future elections.  This topic came up during the Russian talks, specifically with Putin, where they discussed the problem that all democracies face in not having secure elections.  With so much at stake, it should always be assumed that election fraud will occur if there are not tight controls in place on the process.  No matter where in the world those elections are taking place.  Cheating is endemic to the human race among those who are too lazy to compete.  And there are always lots of those people in any society.  And in America, where laziness is encouraged, of course, there will be a large sector of the population that will be inclined to cheat to get their people elected.  There is always a lot of money and power at stake in elections, so we should always assume that cheating will be present unless we are vigilant in preventing it.  And now we have a lot of proof that the mail-in process does not have honest people in it, and that cheating was part of the anticipated vote count, which we saw in the 2020 election that we still have not solved.  Mail-in ballots continued to be a problem in the 2024 election, but Trump had such a significant lead that Democrats couldn’t overcome him in state-to-state races.  As I pointed out before, states without voter ID had more election fraud than states that didn’t.  And, of course, there is nothing worse than a mail-in ballot that comes from an undisclosed person in a box with a bunch of other votes from unknown sources, and is counted alongside all the legitimate ballots, which an election worker witnesses. 

We observed a significant overcount in 2020 from mail-in ballots that likely didn’t represent actual voters, as Democrats were unable to replicate the effort in 2024.  They fell well short of the 81 million votes for president that they had shown for Biden.  Those numbers fell short for Kamala Harris, which should have been the same number of engagement.  Logically.  Only in 2020 were mail-in voting rules loosened due to COVID lockdowns, which then opened the door to massive cheating, which was much harder to replicate in the 2024 election.  What is interesting about the 2024 election is that while everyone was focused on the presidential election, with a margin for victory much higher for Trump, the House races and many Senate races were largely overlooked.  Yet at least 7 House races were decided by a margin of less than 1%.  The California 13th district, where Adam Gray defeated the incumbent John Duarte by less than .09%, or 187 votes out of 200,000 cast.  That margin was likely determined by mail-in ballots counted illegally.  That was likely the case in Colorado’s 8th district, where Yadira Caraveo beat Gabe Evans by just 557 votes.  And going back to 2019, in the race for governor in Kentucky between Matt Bevin and Andy Beshear, the Democrat won by just 5,136 votes out of 1.4 million cast, with an election margin of just 0.37%.  If illegal mail-in ballots had not been counted, the Republican majorities in the House and Senate right now would not be as close as they are.  There was still a significant amount of fraud in 2024 that did not receive much attention because Trump won his election.  But a lot of the margin for Republicans in the House and Senate would have otherwise been much larger. 

Democrats, of course, hope that nobody notices and that they can cheat in 2026 to gain majorities back in the House and Senate, so to prevent that from happening, we have to have much better controls over elections.  The election fraud question came up again in the White House as an off-topic question while Zelinsky was visiting.  And Trump had to explain his reason for the executive order on mail-in ballots.  This idea that we need to bring elections to the doorstep of voters is a Democrat one because they have so many of their members who are lazy and unengaged.  And they need their votes to get any power.  But that’s not how a free society is supposed to work.  People need to manage their representation in person, providing proof of their identity.  And someone needs to witness that exchange.  The security should be just as rigorous as cashing a check at the bank or any other financial transaction.  We should assume that people will want to cheat.  So we must guard every vote.  That seems logical, but the expectation from Democrats is that every disenfranchised person should be able to vote, allowing them to fill out the ballot and submit it through mail-in ballots as a legitimate vote.  And many of these close elections are going to Democrats over Republicans, tipping power in a way that does not represent what voters pick.  And the damage is extensive.  Just looking at the cost of Biden being in office over Trump, everyone discussing the Russian peace talks agrees that if Trump were in the White House, there would not have been an invasion into Ukraine, and millions of people would still be alive.  That is the cost of election fraud.

You can see that same trend in just about every political race in the country, where Democrats routinely steal yard signs of their opposing candidates.  When people try to steal a message by removing people’s visibility to it, you see a desire to cheat the message toward a favorable outcome by denying information to voters.  That same logic applies to mail-in ballots.  When people can steal a message with fake ballots thrown into a box to be counted with legitimate votes, they certainly will, and do.  So we have to take away all these opportunities to cheat that Democrats have lobbied for over the years, disguised as fairness.  Because the exact opposite has happened.  There are a lot of Democrats in office now who should not be.  And when a former KGB agent in Putin says that the 2020 election was stolen, it’s not because he played a part in it.  We know now from intelligence reports that Russia could not impact the 2016 election or the 2020 election.  But many people have discussed the election rigging that has gone on in Russia and many other places in the world.  And when Putin says that there was blatant cheating, people should listen, because he would know.  Elections work against those who want power from an administrative perspective, so all election locations are prone to cheating.  With each one, we need to approach them with a heavy hand toward security.  We must expect people who want power, as well as those who want to hold it, to cheat to gain it.  Cheating in an election is safer than an armed revolt, and many of these radicals would not hesitate to take power through force.  Cheating for them is a reasonable concession.  And because cheating has been so pervasive, we have a lot fewer Republicans than we otherwise should have.  And we need to correct that before the 2026 midterm.  Democrats will cheat to gain power back, and it is our job to take that ability away from them and force them to win honest elections.  Which they likely can’t do.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Have Personally Saved Lakota School District Businesses and Residences Many Hundreds of Millions of Dollars: What the next generation looks like

I don’t talk about it much or think about it in any significant way, but I have had at least three school board members tell me what someone reminded me of this past week.  I have personally saved the Lakota school district, businesses, and homes many millions of dollars in tax money because of my stance against Lakota schools.  Its pretty unusual for a school district the size of Lakota schools to go as long as they have without a request for a tax increase and the hidden element that doesn’t get discussed by the school and the media that reports hand in hand with them is that it has been my name that they don’t want to deal with in their public relations efforts to extract more taxes from the public.  Going back to the No Lakota Levy days, from 2010 to 2013, it was me and a few business owners who got together and put forth a resistance to tax increases proposed by Lakota schools in the form of levy initiatives.  And I was the spokesman who did all the radio spots, television and wrote articles for the media, and even produced my own material.  So much so that the reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer told me directly that I was his biggest competition, as he was interviewing me for my anti-tax positions.  We defeated three consecutive tax increases until school board member Julie Shaffer and some of her cohorts devised a scheme with the same Enquirer to try to destroy me personally.  Of course, it didn’t work for a lot of the same reasons. After they finally got a tax increase passed in 2013, by the slimmest margin they could have had and still call it a win, they haven’t tried since, until recently.  This year, in 2025, they will try again, starting with a facilities plan.  Then, after it cools off a bit, they will push for an operational tax increase.  However, I am happy to say that these days, it’s not just me who is resisting. 

Following that win in 2013, many members of No Lakota Levy were tired of feeling socially excluded.  They were primarily people who attended all the social functions, which, at that time, Lakota controlled exclusively as the region’s largest employer.  And the longer I was the front man, the more rhetoric that would come my way.  And I do not tolerate intimidation from anyone.  So I dug in for a fight that would last for another 15 years, and it has become very vicious.  It started for me by simply discussing how Lakota’s wage structure was out of control, with too many six-figure salaries inflating the budget, which caused them to take money from property owners.  But Lakota’s plot to deal with me was to get rid of me.  And because they weren’t able to do that, they haven’t been able to put a levy on the ballot all this time, even though they have wanted to.  They’ve been dipping their toes in the water since 2019, but wouldn’t, fearing the mess it would cause and the potential for a levy fight they knew they couldn’t win, with declining enrollment keeping them from having to.  Yes, I have personally saved the Lakota school district’s businesses and personal residences many hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, and I have been happy to lend my name to that endeavor for that purpose. 

It’s better to pay for lawn signs than the high taxes of a Lakota levy passage

At many social events, knowing that Lakota schools planned to go for a tax increase at some point, we have been talking about getting the old ‘No Lakota Levy’ band back together again.  And there is a lot of hope in putting this facilities plan first, as many of those old members probably won’t want to join against a tax increase going forward because they want to be part of the construction of new facilities.  And while we’re all community members who generally like each other, I have been that one person who couldn’t care less what anybody at Lakota schools thinks of me, and that conflict has kept them in check to a large degree, not wanting the public relations nightmare that a conflict with me will undoubtedly cause them.  So we have been able to prove in the Lakota district that schools do not make communities great.  They are essentially free babysitting services to busy parents.  The reason the part of Butler County where Lakota schools are located has continued to have excellent resale value, and numerous businesses have come to the region and stayed, is that we have kept taxes low.  And to that point, we have kept Lakota schools from requesting additional funding every couple of years, unlike most schools around the country.  Making the Lakota district very attractive to investors in commercial and residential opportunities, not for the schools, but for the lack of taxes.  So in that way, my name has been worth many millions of dollars in gained opportunity costs that high taxes would have otherwise destroyed.  However, in the same conversation where I was being given credit for stopping Lakota schools from tax increases over 15 years, I was also asked what I considered success to be, if I was being a bit reserved in taking all the credit.  And I said what I have said to many successful people, hundreds of consultants over the years, lawyers, and media professionals: how do I define success?  And my statement has been, when you work yourself out of a job. 

I am very proud of many people over those 15 years who have found their voice and are stepping up to take all this to an entirely new level.  Of course, I will always be involved in these kinds of fights.  And I am involved in a lot more fights than just this Lakota thing.  I am happy to see that some brilliant people, who are very ambitious in their own way, have started to meet the new tax increase from Lakota schools with the next generation of No Lakota Levy.  They have signs going to the printer as I write this and are ready for a vicious campaign in September and October of 2025, and beyond.  They have started a PAC called Citizens PAC, where people can donate money to cover the costs of signs and mailers, which can be pretty expensive.  And that PAC isn’t just for this levy, but to fund at least the next 5 to 6 attempts, so that we can keep taxes down in the district, as they have been.  I would dare say these guys are better positioned than we were at No Lakota Levy all those years ago, where so much good did come out of it.  This next generation is much more vicious, articulate, and engaged than previous ones, because back then, nobody knew what this kind of resistance looked like.  However, we now have a wealth of history to draw from, including what works, what doesn’t work, and the cost of such resistance.  And what it saves.  Saving hundreds of millions of dollars in lost taxes for these public schools is a huge deal that wasn’t as well known back in the day.  However, in the future, we will be much better prepared, with years of history to draw from.  I’m thrilled to tell everyone that not only will there be resistance to these new levies from Lakota schools, but also from other schools.  But I think the coverage will be much better.  And it fits my model for success.  How do you know if you’ve been successful?  If you work yourself out of a job, you can pursue other interests.  You should never make anything all about you.  And while I appreciate the nice comments and credit, I want to see success.  I think the members of this new Citizens PAC will do a better job and be more successful because they now have a track record and know how to utilize it.  Of course, I will always do what I do.  However, there are now many more people doing it.  I would encourage donations because the goal is to save the millions more in tax increases, which a few yard signs here and there are more than worth spending to save massive amounts of money that Lakota schools want to confiscate and waste on a terrible product.  But to answer the question, will No Lakota Levy get together for a new tour?  And the answer is, it’s time for the old band to retire.  A new band is rising to the occasion, and the music they play I think will be much better.  Nobody wants to see David Lee Roth in concert these days.  They want the latest and greatest, and that is what the Lakota school district is going to get.

This situation makes me think of David Lee Roth, and watching him sing recently, it makes it abundantly clear that people need to know when to hang it up. I have a fascinating personal David Lee Roth story I’ll tell sometime. He should have retired years ago.

Rich Hoffman

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

Trump Should Go To Moscow: Keeping Putin from pulling the rug out from under peace

I think President Trump should visit Moscow and meet with Putin ahead of any other meetings they might have, to demonstrate that he has done everything possible.  There are a lot of villains at work; Ukraine is surely not innocent as a maniacal globalist power, and when a very sketchy former KGB agent invites you to come to his country to talk, I think Trump could get a ceasefire out of the deal in exchange, because Putin would have to do something big in response. Regarding the Alaska 2025 meeting, which was productive, I thought it was over the top to conduct the flyover and escort Putin down the red carpet to view the stealth fighters.  It also wasn’t good for Trump, a much larger man, to walk next to Vladimir Putin for such a long time in the open, because it made Putin look small.  Putin handled things well, but what he did was demonstrate his willingness to go to America and make a deal, even if it meant appearing vulnerable in the process.  Observing his body posture, there was a significant amount of KGB manipulation involved.  And Trump knows what he is doing on these kinds of things.  It was mostly a show, and the world was watching intently.  And it will likely lead to an end of the war because all sides have already talked about everything proactively.  Putin has lost over a million people in this war with Ukraine, 100,000 just this year.  I’d say he feels like a sucker the way that the Biden administration coaxed him into the conflict as a cover story to all the Russian strawman efforts of the European Union and the Democrat Party in general.

I heard a lot of dumb stuff from the media during the whole meeting with Trump and Putin.  You can see who the cheerleaders are for global conflict and who profits from it.  Nothing Trump could have done would have made them happy because they only want war and conflict to be a cover story for major corruption in this whole process.  Putin, no matter what people think of him, is very popular in Russia because he has in his mind a restoration of the Russian borders before 1991, when communism fell and the country fell apart under that weight.  There were numerous United Nations problems with the entire process during the 1990s, particularly between global governance and sovereign nations.  But Putin is willing to throw away millions of Russian lives to retake Ukraine from what he sees as globalist conspirators.  And we would be just as upset if we lost parts of Florida and California to Mexico or Spain.  Russia, as the Soviet Union, was the American enemy during the Cold War, so we are not suddenly sympathetic to a communist cause.  But all the characters in this story are pretty evil and manipulative.  Ukraine is a creation of globalism and is a power grab from that direction, so before anybody can talk about anything, you have to know where everyone is coming from.  And for Putin, he wants his borders back and to help guide his country to its former glory, when he was a much younger man.  Trump was brilliant to let Putin speak first after their three-hour talk.  There were many master class moments from people who have mastered the art of communication, which much of the world completely missed while it was happening.  However, when Putin said in English at the end of his comments to the press that Trump should meet with him next time in Moscow, Trump needs to consider it. 

It’s great to bring all these world leaders to convenient places in the United States.  But imagine how the media would go crazy over Trump going to Moscow.  And how bold it would make Trump appear to the world.  As a former Cold War enemy, having an American president in Moscow with all the pomp that Russia could put on would win over the Russian people and give Putin a straightforward off-ramp from the war.  To have an American president come to his doorstep would be quite an accomplishment for him, and the Russian media would have the story of the century.  They would support Putin in almost anything he did thereafter, even if Russia didn’t regain as much land as they originally wanted.  When we have global media that wants, like nothing else, to decide who talks to whom and when, the best way to stick it to them would be to take the entire meeting out of their hands by holding it in Russia under a grand ceremony, ahead of any other talks with Ukraine or the EU.  It’s always good to get people to talk to each other, rather than adhering to false contentions, and those who have a desire for political outcomes that do not align with America First.  To give Putin that kind of attention would put him on a path to earn respect once again on the world stage and would be a great follow-up to Melania’s letter to Putin, urging him to save the children in this conflict.  There needs to be a mediating step, and when Putin suggested it, he understood the difficulties and set the stage to say he at least suggested it. 

But if Trump doesn’t go to Moscow, under these specific circumstances, Putin will have an excuse to withdraw from everything.  He went to America and made himself vulnerable for his motherland, and the Russian public well received him.  And he invited Trump to continue talks in Russia.  If Trump doesn’t go, it seems like the American president is only happy to talk on American soil with minimal risk to himself.  That was the KGB in Putin as he walked boldly next to a much larger American president, while a B-2 flyover was taking place overhead.  Putin wanted to convey to the world that he had done all he could for peace by meeting with Trump in America.  But he’s winning the war and could easily throw away a million more lives to take back all of Ukraine and topple the country.  It’s a waiting game that he can afford to play.  But Zelinsky and the European Union can’t.  So before Putin pulls the rug out from under everyone, Trump should go to Russia and advance talks of at least a ceasefire while these other details are worked out.  Because if he did, Putin wouldn’t be able to pull out of this deal, because the peer pressure of his country wouldn’t let him.  Nobody thinks Trump would go to Moscow to make a peace deal, including Putin, when he said it.  So the most extraordinary thing that Trump could do would be to take his show on the road and address the Russian people directly, with the same courtesy that was shown to Putin.  Many good things would happen as a result.  The media would have a meltdown, as would all the globalist types.  However, it would prevent Putin from undermining the efforts, save a lot of lives, and be monumentally historic.  And if I were speaking with Trump, I’d encourage him to do it this upcoming week, while the opportunity is still available. 

Rich Hoffman

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

‘Sketch’ is a Great Movie: Disney goes against Trump supporters

You would think that Disney would have learned some hard lessons about its role in the world and the financial problems it is finding itself in.  However, I don’t like discussing negatives all the time, because a fantastic movie called Sketch hit theaters a few weeks ago and is a sign of many good things to come from Angel Studios, showcasing a much different movie world on the horizon.  The Hollyweird crowd has lost all its influence and power and is on a dramatic downward trend.  Sketch was an excellent film that was on limited release, so it’s not a box office titan, unlike the way Disney distributes films. However, coming off the success of the fantastic Chosen series, Angel Studios, I think, is fair to say, is replacing the role Disney used to play with families.  I thought Sketch reminded me of a modern version of E.T., Goonies, or even Gremlins, movies produced by Steven Spielberg in his prime.  And it shows that markets determine success, not PR firms and lawyers who run these big studios these days.  The CEO of Disney came a bit unglued this past week, doubling down on his decision to release films that continue to fail to excite the public as they once did.  The recent movie, Fantastic Four, which I thought was pretty fantastic, has not performed well.  It will be fortunate to collect $500 million, half of what was expected to be made, and that is because Disney has lost the trust of the public. Bob Iger now sees the problem I have been pointing out for a long time, much more clearly.  It’s safe to say that his hopes for the upcoming movie Doomsday are in serious trouble because all the films building it up are not performing well at the movie theater.  

It just goes to show how little the entertainment industry knows about the psychology of the movie-going public.  And I love this topic because movies are something most everyone can relate to.  Most of us watch them whether on television, streaming services, or at the movie theater.  So, in many ways, buying a movie ticket, as I have always seen the experience, is like voting.  People vote for their values by spending money.  But there was a communist movement, as outlined by Cleon Skousen in the famous book, The Naked Communist, to take over the movie studios and the message that they broadcast to the world, and that has undoubtedly happened to Disney through the mask of woke culture.  Now that people have seen just how much Disney resembles the Democrat Party and how anti-Trump they have been, they have stopped spending money on Disney products and have turned toward other entertainment options, such as those provided by Angel Studios.  Currently, they are not financially comparable, even though they may show movies side by side.  I think the movie Sketch cost around $ 3 million to make, and it is considered very profitable, having doubled that amount in returns.  Whereas something like the latest Fantastic Four movie costs half a billion dollars by the time it’s made, and some media is created for it.  And it’s poised to break even, maybe.  So it’s not apples to apples, but more like apples and apple sauce.  However, the message is clear: people are leaving Disney and seeking alternatives, which is evident in their declining park attendance as well.  And in anger over their bad decisions to support woke agendas as an entertainment studio, Bob Iger and the stars of Fantastic Four, like Pedro Pascal, have been complaining about Trump supporters, which didn’t help their case.

Disney assumed that people would support whatever they put together because the public had to.  And that is not the case.  Trump supporters have taken themselves off the grid because they dislike the products that Disney has released, or even traditional cable.  I have been talking about emerging streaming services such as Truth Social, Trump’s personal social media platform, and they have good television that breaks the cycle of traditional cable services, leaving CNN, MSNBC, and all the networks struggling to maintain their audiences because they are all fleeing to outlets they trust more even if they are brand new.  Such as Angel Studios, which earned its audience with great projects like The Chosen.  And successful films at the theater, such as The Sound of Freedom.  However, it’s not just Disney; Warner Bros. has been more successful and less woke than Disney, as evidenced by its box office performance.  However, their recent update to Superman didn’t perform well at the theater, falling well short of expectations, which James Gunn was very dismissive about.  Superman is all about “truth, justice, and the American Way.”  Not the “human way.”  The world looks to America to be a beacon of hope, and that’s what the world wants out of American entertainment.  They don’t wish to communicate messages that put out the fires of hope.  And this Superman just wasn’t that “super.”  He was an all-too-human global citizen, and audiences rejected the premise.  It might have been a pretty good movie, just as Fantastic Four was.  However, the messaging was off-target for the intended audiences.  And when Bob Iger is mad, it’s because he thought he understood elements of market trends that he didn’t.  For all the same reasons people voted for Trump, they also vote with their market dollars on where to spend their money on amusement parks or movies. 

Bob Iger and many others believe that people go to see movies because they like the actors, such as in the upcoming Doomsday with Robert Downey Jr. They are investing massive amounts of money in these actors, thereby inflating the budgets.  There will be approximately 100 cameo actors in the upcoming big Marvel movie.  But the gamble on Pedro Pascal is scaring everyone at the Mouse House because it hasn’t turned out the way they planned.  I personally liked Pedro Pascal in The Fantastic Four.  I think he is good as The Mandalorian.  But he’s too woke to replace Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis as the new Hollywood leading man.  Because Hollywood thought it controlled the message, and that people loved the actors, but that is not turning out to be true.  A movie like Sketch features a cast of actors, none of whom are stars, and yet the movie still performed well for its small audience.  It will stream well, and people will remember it far longer than these Marvel movies.  And rather than learn their lesson, Disney is only digging deeper, indicating that they are going to double down on their woke agenda.  And that’s the problem.  Nobody cares about their product, and the more they push an openly gay agenda, which they did in The Eternals, people will drop them as an entertainment option, and that includes the $20k vacation to Disney World.  Eternals, with its openly gay scenes, was the dagger that halted Marvel’s successes at Disney.  The longer they avoid addressing that issue, the more financial damage they will incur.  When a studio and its actors go against the political trend of a nation like America, they can’t survive.  To fill the void of family entertainment left behind by Disney, there is the wonderful Angel Studios, which is producing great entertainment.  Sketch is just one example.  And for Bob Iger, a hard lesson that he will learn too late: the market is in charge.  Communist leaders are not.  And studios, if such assumptions capture them, will lose money in that marketplace because of free choice. 

Rich Hoffman

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