Tag: Marxism

Election Integrity, the California Playbook, and the Cost of Letting Stupid Requirements Stand

I don’t want to be that guy who keeps circling back to the same uncomfortable subjects, but the truth doesn’t do me any favors by staying quiet. There was a very good episode of War Room the other day in which Rudy Giuliani spent about 45 minutes across three segments laying out exactly what happened in the Los Angeles mayoral race. Steve Hilton, a strong candidate who was performing well on election night, watched the lead evaporate as ballots kept being counted long after the polls closed. It wasn’t mysterious. It was the same playbook we saw in 2020, refined and deployed again in 2026 wherever the rules allow endless mail-in and provisional ballots with minimal traceability. I put the episode on my blog because people need to see it. When you have no voter ID requirement, same-day voting standards, and the ability to keep counting until the desired number appears, the cheese is already baked into the system. You’re not running a representative republic anymore. You’re running a managed installation process. 

Anybody who lived through 2020 knows what massive fraud looks like when it happens in plain sight. Ballots appearing in the middle of the night, unsecured drop boxes, signature verification that was loosened or ignored under the cover of COVID, and the endless counting in key jurisdictions until the numbers flipped. No one of any real consequence was ever punished for it. Rudy Giuliani stepped forward, paid an enormous personal price in wealth, reputation, and legal warfare, and they tried to destroy him. Trump, as a billionaire, could finance his way through the lawfare with good lawyers. Most people cannot. That is the chilling effect. Whistleblowers see what happens to Tina Peters in Colorado or the January 6 defendants and decide the personal cost is too high. The evidence gets suppressed or buried because the people who hold it are intimidated into silence. “Where is the proof?” the critics ask. The proof is in the ruined lives of those who brought it forward and in the jurisdictions where the rules were deliberately written to make fraud easy and detection hard.

Look at California under Gavin Newsom. The rules he and his allies put in place allow ballots to be counted well past election day. No strict voter ID. Mail-in ballots that arrive with weak chain-of-custody protections. Once the election-night numbers come in and the gap is known, the machinery can produce or process just enough additional ballots to close it. Steve Hilton was doing well enough that night, but the final certified results told a different story. This is not speculation. It is the observable pattern in places where the system is designed for it. In Ohio, we saw Amy Acton, as health director, literally cancel an election during COVID because it was supposedly too dangerous to vote in person. The same public health apparatus that pushed masks, lockdowns, and trust-the-science messaging while gain-of-function research funding flowed created the pretext for changing voting rules nationwide. Dr. Fauci’s emails, the lab-leak questions that were dismissed as conspiracy theories, and the lack of accountability afterward showed the credentialed class protecting its own. Rand Paul and others tried to hold them accountable through proper channels, but the Department of Justice under Biden was not interested. The push was always toward more centralized control and less verifiable elections. 

I have watched this up close in Ohio politics for years. Butler County, Lakota schools, commissioner races—the local battles matter because they are where the rubber meets the road for families. But the bigger picture is national. Republicans who still carry water for the old institutional order—McConnell holdovers, Susan Collins types—look at their role as sandbagging the tide rather than representing the voters who sent them there. They see Trump as a temporary disruption, a lame duck whose influence will fade, and they want to preserve what they call the “institution” even if it means slow-walking real reform on election security. Bernie Moreno is doing a great job in the Senate from Ohio. JD Vance represents a different, more combative generation. Ten years from now, people like them will be the moderates compared to the harder line the base demands. The Senate is changing, but the sandbaggers are still there, trying to keep the door open just wide enough for the familiar game to continue.

The Marxist playbook is not subtle. Control the flow of information, install sympathetic officials in key positions (secretaries of state, election boards), loosen verification, and use emergencies—real or manufactured—to justify changes that make fraud scalable. COVID was the perfect vehicle. It allowed rule changes that never fully reverted. In blue strongholds and sanctuary jurisdictions, the combination of no ID, mail ballots without robust tracking, and post-election counting creates the opportunity to “find” whatever margin is needed. They laugh about it because they believe the system protects them. Giuliani, despite everything they threw at him, is still willing to go on War Room and say the quiet part out loud. Tina Peters went to jail for trying to preserve records. January 6 protesters who raised their voices about election integrity are still suffering consequences. The message is clear: bring forward the evidence, and we will bankrupt you, jail you, or block you.

I know a thing or two about blocklisting. In my line of work and in the writing I do, talking about these subjects attaches your name to algorithms that throttle reach. Platforms claim to support free speech but run background filters that limit the distribution of content on controversial topics. Pay to remove restrictions if you have the money, or stay throttled. It is a revenue stream and a control mechanism. Yet the truth does not disappear just because the search results are manipulated. Election fraud evidence exists in the affidavits, the video footage, the statistical anomalies, the whistleblower accounts that never received fair hearings, and the simple, observable reality that, in too many places, the counting never seems to stop until the right side wins. Steve Hilton’s race is only the latest example. Unless every state adopts strict voter ID, same-day voting with paper trails, and real-time chain of custody for mail ballots, the door stays open. Federal elections have national consequences, so national standards are not radical—they are constitutional common sense.

People ask why Republicans don’t just win bigger everywhere. Look at the states where elections are reasonably secure versus those that treat ballots like confetti. The contrast is obvious. The rhinos who shrug and say “demographics are destiny” or “we can’t fight the system” are the ones preserving the very mechanisms that import and protect the demographics they claim are inevitable. Trump showed what happens when you fight. The institutional response was lawfare, censorship, and two-tier justice. They tried to destroy him financially and legally because he was too big to intimidate easily. Most candidates are not. That is why the credentialed and connected class thought they could install Biden, prop him up, and continue the managed decline. The economy suffered, borders were chaotic, and trust evaporated. Now in 2026, we see the same tactics locally and statewide.

I have reverence for genuine history and for the people who were here before European settlement. I have read deeply on Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, the Shawnee, and the broader Native nations of the Ohio Valley. Their stories are rich and tragic. But calling every group that happened to occupy land at a particular moment “indigenous” in a way that freezes history and justifies modern political narratives is the same credentialed sleight-of-hand we see in election administration. Cultures rose and fell here long before. The Windover Bog People in Florida, the Old Copper Complex around the Great Lakes, the Hopewell and Adena earthworks—these show sophisticated societies with trade and complexity going back thousands of years. The point is evidence, not ideology. The same applies to elections. Let the ballots be verifiable. Let the voters be who they say they are. Anything less is an invitation to the kind of managed outcomes we keep witnessing.

In my aerospace work, I deal with credentialed experts who cling to old drawings because their name is on them. Changing anything costs time, money, and bruised egos. SpaceX succeeds by ruthlessly eliminating stupid requirements. Gwynne Shotwell laid it out clearly—ditch the unnecessary parts, simplify, iterate faster. That mindset scales. The same disease infects our politics and election systems. Layers of bureaucracy, legacy rules, and protected interests prevent simple fixes like voter ID and paper-trail same-day voting. The result is predictable: outcomes that do not match the obvious sentiment on the ground. People see their neighborhoods change, costs rise, and security erode, yet the installed officials keep winning under rules that favor volume over verification.

The future Senate looks better with people like Bernie Moreno and JD Vance. They represent a harder edge that will not tolerate the old sandbagging. But the McConnell holdovers still act as if their job is to restrain the voters rather than represent them. Trump’s influence, even as a lame duck in their eyes, forced the conversation. The base will not go back to business as usual. Election integrity is non-negotiable. States that leave the door open to post-election counting and unsecured mail ballots are advertising their willingness to let the system be gamed. California’s recent races are Exhibit A. Newsom’s rules enabled the endless counting. The gap on election night was known, and the machinery filled it. This is not democracy. This is an installation.

I have no illusions that talking about it will win me friends in certain circles. My name gets associated with searches for election security and fraud, and my reach gets limited. But the truth is stubborn. Giuliani, despite everything, keeps speaking. Tina Peters paid a heavy price for preserving records. Ordinary people who showed up on January 6 to protest what they saw are still living with the consequences. The credentialed class and their political allies thought they could intimidate everyone into silence. They overreached. The backlash is building because people can see the pattern with their own eyes. When ballots keep appearing until the right number is reached, when ID is treated as oppression rather than basic security, and when emergencies are used to rewrite rules permanently, the representative republic is replaced by something else.

My book The Politics of Heaven explores the deeper spiritual and historical layers—how non-human influences, heavenly politics, and human power structures interact across time. Election fraud fits inside that larger story. It is not just technical cheating. It is the attempt to frustrate the will of a people and impose an agenda that cannot win in the open. The ancient temptation is always to seize control by any means. The modern version uses bureaucracy, emergency powers, and captured institutions. The solution is the same as it has always been: transparency, accountability, and courage. Secure the elections. Demand ID. Insist on same-day counting with paper trails. Punish fraud severely. Anything less leaves the door open for the next round.

The rhinos who think they can wait Trump out and return to the comfortable institutional game are misreading the moment. The base has seen too much. Bernie Marino and others like him point to a different Senate ten years from now—one less tolerant of sandbagging. The future belongs to those willing to close the loopholes and let the people’s will actually decide. Until then, the California model—endless ballots, no ID, counting until victory—is the warning. Giuliani laid it out in the War Room. The episode is worth watching. The pattern is clear. The evidence is in the rules themselves and in the observable results that defy election-night reality.

I keep coming back to these subjects because they matter more than comfort. My job in aerospace shows me daily how clinging to stupid requirements destroys efficiency and progress. The same is true in government and elections. Scrap the unnecessary parts. Simplify. Verify. Iterate on truth instead of protecting the machine. The republic depends on it. The age of disclosure demands it. The Politics of Heaven is coming soon because the heavenly politics have earthly consequences, and we cannot afford to ignore either.

Footnotes

[1] War Room episode with Giuliani on LA mayoral race (recent 2026 broadcast); patterns of post-election counting under California rules.

[2] COVID-era changes in Ohio and nationally, including Acton’s election cancellation; Fauci-related correspondence and gain-of-function context from public records and testimony.

[3] Ohio Senate figures (Moreno, Vance) and McConnell holdovers; institutional resistance patterns.

[4] General election security literature on voter ID, mail ballot chain of custody, and statistical anomalies in 2020/2026 races.

Bibliography

•  Giuliani, Rudy. Appearances and segments on War Room (2026 episodes covering California election practices).

•  Public records on California election rules under the Newsom administration (mail ballot processing, post-election counting).

•  Ohio election history, including Amy Acton’s COVID-era decisions (state health department archives).

•  Peters, Tina. Case documents and Colorado election integrity proceedings.

•  Various congressional testimony on the 2020 election (House and Senate committees).

•  ODNI and related reports on broader integrity and influence issues.

•  Standard references on election administration: voter ID studies from the Heritage Foundation and state audit reports.

•  Personal and local Ohio political context (Butler County, Lakota, commissioner races) from public records.

•  The Politics of Heaven manuscript themes (spiritual/historical layers intersecting modern power structures).

•  Additional reading: Works on lawfare against Trump and Giuliani; January 6 case summaries; comparative state election security analyses (e.g., states with strict ID vs. expansive mail-in).

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

The Bad Guys Deserve Punishment: Destroying Iran to free people from tyranny

I’ve been watching everything unfold in real time. It feels good to see some real aggression from the top, finally. Everybody’s talking about how Trump’s inspiration is driving this new level of toughness—hitting Iran hard, taking out Maduro in Venezuela, and setting up hemispheric shielding through Kristi Noem’s new gig as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas. It’s exactly what we needed. We’ve lived through a very dangerous time, and we had to have justice for what was done to us. So when people whine, “Why are you being so aggressive? Why treat Venezuela like this? Why talk so tough on Iran, China, the cartels?”—I point to the big picture. We tried playing nice when we could, making deals, but the bad actors never stopped scheming in the background. Iran’s always been problematic, bragging about nuclear warheads and funding terrorists. Trump couldn’t walk away from negotiations with them, thumbing their nose at honest attempts at peace in the Middle East. If they’re going to keep sponsoring terror, you cut the head off the snake. That’s what’s happening now, and it had to happen.

Obviously, the Democrats support that kind of insurrection—they want the downfall of the United States. Peel back the layers, and you see China behind so much of it: property acquisitions here, buying up media companies to steer narratives their way. It’s been ugly, nasty, nasty, nasty. After what they did with COVID, the lockdowns, the global economic sabotage—Bill Gates, the whole crew—people get mad if they’re not in jail or tied up somewhere. They have too much money; they buy courts, buy freedom. They don’t get in trouble. And yeah, I still think Jeffrey Epstein’s alive out there. He’s too rich to die that way. Body double, bought-off guards, elements of law enforcement—it’s not hard with that kind of cash.

Trump doesn’t have the constitutional power to round them all up and jail them—he can’t do it directly—but he can attack their mechanisms of evil. The way bad guys use countries like Iran, Venezuela, Mexican drug cartels, North Korea, and even Russia, stirring up Ukraine—they hustle agents, cause chaos, turn everybody in the wrong direction. But Trump’s clear: no boots on the ground for forever wars. We never should’ve been doing that. I joke about it half-seriously, but what was the Iraq war really about? Oil? Securing prices and American interests? Weapons of mass destruction, they never found? Or was it about raiding the Baghdad Museum right after the invasion, grabbing ancient DNA or artifacts from Gilgamesh’s era to mess with human genetics, or hide giants like in Kandahar? Those conspiracy theories floated around podcasts after retirees started talking. People have lost faith in institutions, in the nightly news narrative: “We’re going to war to save people from communism,” or whatever. Yet the bad guys propped up maniacs for decades—Fidel Castro, the Iranian Revolution in the late ’70s as a Marxist movement hidden behind religion, so you couldn’t criticize it without attacking Islam. That’s how they sold it here: don’t criticize our communities, even as they shuffled in socialism, lined people up for food stamps and welfare, turning dependency into modern slavery to the government instead of plantations.

The same thing’s happening with radical Islam—thorny alliances everywhere, causing needless harm—cartels in Mexico, Venezuelan aggression, and China behind it all. China was built by the deep state; they never would’ve had the money without investment firms funneling stolen Federal Reserve wealth, Wall Street manipulations, modern monetary theory tricks at Jackson Hole conferences. It sounds wild because the media calls it crazy, but listen to those talks—it’s out there.

That’s why everybody’s upset about these moves. Iran’s economy is a dying fallout on the couch—they can’t fight a real war. No ships, no missiles, no planes of any worth. They’ve been de-industrialized by sanctions. Trump bombed them because they poked the bear with radical Islam and ideology issues tied to the Democrat party, which clearly represents America’s destruction in so many ways. Obama gave them billions to keep their economy afloat so they could buy terrorist toys; now Trump’s taking it all away. As an elected official, we put him in office to do this job; he’s doing it. We don’t want radical losers causing trouble worldwide. We don’t want cartels running Mexico—pulling people over for bribes, corruption everywhere. We want to vacation or do business there without fear. We don’t want Venezuela screwing our energy markets. We don’t want Iran sponsoring terrorism. We want peace in the Middle East—Jews, Christians, everybody getting along, building lives.

This is what Kristi Noem’s Shield of the Americas is about—stabilization in the hemisphere. She’s moved from DHS to Special Envoy, focusing on dismantling cartels, securing the Western Hemisphere, working with Rubio and Hegseth. It’s hemispheric shielding: choke off the bad guys economically and militarily without endless occupations. Trump’s not putting boots everywhere; he sends precision strikes, missiles as compliments of capitalism—paid for by the best system in the world. That’s how you win now.

All these characters in the background—COVID planners, great reset pushers, China feeders—they used distractions like Iran to usher agendas through while we fought shadows. Peel back the onion: destroy the disguises, pull off the masks. That’s happening in Iran right now, Venezuela (Maduro captured in January, U.S. overseeing oil rebuild), and Mexico (cartel disruptions). It’s great. I highly support what Trump’s doing—I want to see a whole lot more. He’s actually being too nice in some ways. The world deserves this reckoning for 2020: stolen elections, COVID as a weapon, great reset leashed to lockdowns, all attached to global control plots. Epstein, Gates, Russian honeypots, Chinese labs—it’s out there.

If you think that’s all a conspiracy, it’s in the open now. The people crying loudest about Iran are the ones who used these characters to cause trouble. Forget the courts, UN nonsense, and treaties that neutralized America so bad guys could thrive. Time for punishment. Show the world it happens. Use capitalism for upper mobility, freedom in Hong Kong, Venezuela, Mexico, England, and Europe. Lead by example: take away the hostiles causing trouble. Iran had no other intention but trouble since the late ’70s Marxist infusion feeding communism, China, Russia, socialist Latin America—all anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-upward mobility. They played their part in lockdowns, freedom theft, and using COVID to destroy economies into a great reset.

This isn’t theory anymore; it’s action. Trump’s crushing them economically, stripping them of their covers, exposing them. The attacks on Iran neutralize them as a threat—they tried rational peace, but they’re hostile. Venezuela’s aggression, Mexico’s cartels—all choked off. No more hiding. Democrats and the media cry because Iran was their Marxist disguise, a haven, a proxy to break America down. Now excuses stripped away, masks off—nowhere to hide. They don’t like it, but too bad. It’s great, the bad guys needed to be punished.  And now they are.

Footnotes

1.  On Operation Epic Fury and Khamenei’s death: Strikes targeted nuclear sites, missiles, navy; civilian casualties reported (e.g., girls’ school in Minab). Trump urged regime change without full occupation.

2.  Maduro capture in January 2026: U.S. raid framed as anti-narco-terrorism; plans for long-term oil oversight and revenue split.

3.  Kristi Noem’s role: Appointed Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas (Western Hemisphere) in March 2026, focusing on cartel dismantlement and border security partnerships.

4.  Iran’s 1979 Revolution: Marxist influences blended with Shia Islamism to avoid direct criticism of leftist elements.

5.  Iraq Museum looting: Over 15,000 artifacts stolen post-invasion; fringe theories link to ancient DNA/Gilgamesh,/giants myths.

6.  Kandahar giants: Persistent online legend from alleged U.S. military encounters; widely debunked but symbolic of institutional distrust.

7.  China-media investments: Documented stakes in U.S. outlets; fentanyl precursor supply to Mexican cartels well-reported.

8.  Obama’s Iran payment: $1.7 billion settlement for pre-1979 arms deal, not direct “terror funding” per official accounts.

9.  COVID/Great Reset conspiracies: WEF initiative twisted into global control narratives; Gates-Epstein links fueled speculation.

10.  Epstein “alive” theories: Persistent despite official ruling; tied to elite protections.

Bibliography

•  White House Fact Sheet on Iran (2026). https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-addresses-threats-to-the-united-states-by-the-government-of-iran

•  DHS Announcement on Noem’s Role (March 5, 2026). https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/03/05/thanks-president-trump-and-secretary-noem-america-safer

•  TIME on Shield of the Americas (2026). https://time.com/7382975/kristi-noem-new-job-shield-of-americas

•  Marxist.com on the Iranian Revolution (historical analysis).

•  Various: Axios, Politico, The Hill, CNN reports on 2026 operations in Iran/Venezuela.

•  Reuters Institute on Chinese media influence.

•  BBC on Great Reset conspiracies.

•  Brookings on Obama-Iran cash transfer.

•  CSIS/NBC on China-cartel connections.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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Affordability in Crisis: Why Price Hikes Are a Symptom of Deeper Economic Mismanagement

 The Illusion of Prosperity

Affordability has become one of the most pressing economic issues of 2025. Everywhere you look—groceries, housing, dining, even basic services—prices have surged. Politicians blame “corporate greed,” consultants preach “raise your prices,” and consumers wonder why their paychecks don’t stretch as far as promised.

I warned about this years ago in my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. The affordability crisis isn’t a mystery—it’s the predictable outcome of government interference, consultant-driven short-term thinking, and a cultural abandonment of lean principles. What we’re seeing now is the result of artificial wage inflation, cost-plus pricing models, and a failure to defend capitalism’s core logic.

Section 1: The Wage-Price Spiral—How Policy Broke the Market

The roots of today’s affordability problem lie in political decisions, not market forces. When Democrats pushed for a $15 minimum wage, they claimed it would lift millions out of poverty. On paper, that sounds noble. In reality, it distorted the entire wage structure.

• Minimum wage hikes ripple upward: When entry-level pay jumps, mid-tier and senior wages follow. Businesses face higher labor costs across the board.

• Inflationary pressure kicks in: To cover these costs, companies raise prices. Consultants reinforce this with “cost-plus” advice—pass it on to the customer.

• Purchasing power stagnates: Even if workers earn more nominally, real wages barely improve because goods and services inflate proportionally.

• Nominal wages rose 78.7% since 2006, but real wages (inflation-adjusted) grew only 11.9%.

• Inflation spiked to 9.1% in June 2022, while wage growth lagged at 4.8%, creating the sharpest negative gap in decades.

• From 2024 to 2025, inflation cooled to ~3%, but real wage gains remain modest—about 0.58%.

Timeline of Key Events:

• 2020: COVID pandemic disrupts labor markets.

• 2021: Stimulus checks and remote work incentives distort supply-demand.

• 2022: Inflation peaks amid supply chain chaos and wage hikes.

• 2025: Affordability crisis persists despite cooling inflation.

Section 2: Consultants and the Cost-Plus Trap

Post-COVID, businesses faced unprecedented disruption: supply chain chaos, labor shortages, and regulatory burdens. Enter the consultants—the self-proclaimed saviors of industry. Their universal advice? “Raise your prices.”

This is the lazy solution. Instead of driving waste out of operations, consultants push cost-plus models that normalize inefficiency. Every added layer—compliance costs, consultant fees, expedited shipping—gets baked into the price. Customers end up paying for waste, not value.

I warned about this in The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business:

“Consultants rarely take risks; they profit from yours. They stand on the sidelines, leeching off success, and when times get tough, they tell you to ‘charge more.’ That’s not strategy—that’s parasitism.”

Section 3: Global Contrast—Lean vs. Bloated

While American firms inflate prices to cover inefficiencies, Japanese manufacturers pursue the opposite: lean manufacturing. Rooted in the Toyota Production System, lean focuses on eliminating waste, optimizing flow, and maximizing customer value.

Toyota vs. Boeing: A Tale of Two Philosophies

• Toyota: Continuous improvement (Kaizen), Just-in-Time inventory, and employee empowerment drive costs out of the system.

• Boeing: Historically relied on cost-plus contracts with government clients, but has adopted lean principles in recent years to remain competitive.

• Boeing’s move toward Toyota-style production—standardization, automation, and flow lines—helped reduce assembly time for the 777X and 737 programs.

Key Insight: Toyota’s lean culture treats waste elimination as a moral imperative. Boeing, under pressure from SpaceX and Airbus, is learning that lean isn’t optional—it’s survival. 

Section 4: SpaceX—The Lean Disruptor

SpaceX represents the next generation of manufacturing efficiency. By vertically integrating production and reusing rocket boosters, SpaceX slashed launch costs by over 90%—from $25,000/kg to under $1,500/kg.

Compare that to Boeing and Lockheed’s United Launch Alliance (ULA), which historically charged $400 million per launch. Even after aggressive cost-cutting, ULA’s Vulcan rocket costs $110 million—still far above SpaceX’s $69 million Falcon 9 price.

Why SpaceX Wins:

• Reusability: 98% of Falcon 9 boosters reused.

• Vertical Integration: In-house production of engines and avionics.

• Lean Thinking: Eliminates waste at every stage, from design to launch.

Section 5: Post-COVID Price Chaos

COVID didn’t just disrupt supply chains—it rewired pricing behavior. Firms increased the frequency and size of price changes, often without corresponding improvements in value.

Drivers of inflation post-2020:

• Supply shocks: Energy volatility and shipping delays.

• Demand surges: Stimulus-fueled spending and pent-up consumption.

• Labor market distortions: Remote work incentives and wage bargaining power.

Instead of addressing structural inefficiencies, businesses defaulted to price hikes. Consultants validated this approach, creating a culture of inflationary complacency.

Section 6: Affordability vs. Value—The Chef Ramsay Analogy

Not all high prices are bad. I once paid $4,500 for a dinner at Chef Ramsay’s flagship restaurant in London. Why? The experience justified the cost, offering world-class cuisine, impeccable service, and a behind-the-scenes kitchen tour. That’s value-driven pricing.

Contrast that with a $12 fast-food burger inflated to $18 because of wage mandates and consultant fees. The product didn’t improve; the price did. That’s the essence of the affordability crisis: customers paying more for the same—or worse—experience.  In these examples, it’s all food. The only difference is essentially in the value of the brand built.  Nobody is going to confuse a Chef Ramsey restaurant with the McDonald’s experience.  But even McDonald’s these days is showing really high prices for something where the real value is in affordability.  And the less they cover their margin, the more temptation there is to raise their prices, which then makes fewer people use them for a cheap hamburger on the go.  Everyone loses when prices are raised in this process.

Section 7: Solutions—How to Restore Market Logic

1. Reinstate Market-Driven Wages

    • Stop politicizing pay scales. Let supply and demand set labor value.

2. Drive Waste Out

    • Adopt lean principles: eliminate inefficiencies instead of passing them to customers.

3. Reward True Value

    • Premium pricing should reflect premium experience—not bureaucratic overhead.

4. Reject Consultant Dependency

    • Build internal expertise. Consultants should advise, not dictate.

5. Defend Capitalism

    • Capitalism thrives on competition and efficiency—not government micromanagement or parasitic intermediaries.

The Gunfighter’s Perspective

In The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, I infused into this discussion:

“If you want to shoot down the bandits in the street, don’t hire a posse of consultants who only loot the carcass after the fight. Learn to aim, pull the trigger, and own the risk.  And take the rewards for yourself, don’t share them with the parasites.  The dandies, who only come after all the hard stuff is done, only steal what is won in the fight after.”

That philosophy matters now more than ever. Affordability isn’t about price tags—it’s about value, efficiency, and courage to reject easy answers.

From the book:

“Shooting from the hip is an example of quality and delivery that should be sought after, not avoided.”
(The book reframes quick, decisive action as a strength in business.) [amazon.com]

“America’s Art of War — this book should be taught in every business school in America.”
(Positioning the book as a modern interpretation of strategic classics.) [amazon.com]

“They may have traded their six guns for ties, pens, and emails, but the goals are the same as they have always been: success!”
(Drawing parallels between gunfighters and modern professionals.) [amazon.com]

“A new view of management is unleashed here, termed by the author as ‘ghosting it.’”
(An original concept in the book about leadership and obscure objectives.) [bookstore….ishing.com]

“The old West is not dead but instead is very much alive as we aim our business goals toward space and look to conquer the next frontier.”

Closing Thoughts

America’s affordability crisis is self-inflicted. We let politics override economics, consultants override common sense, and waste override value. The solution isn’t another round of price hikes—it’s a return to market discipline and operational excellence.

If you want more on this, read The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. It’s not just a book—it’s a manifesto for reclaiming capitalism from the parasites and restoring sanity to the marketplace.  I knew when I wrote that book that a tough time was coming, and everything is happening exactly as I said it would.  So I’m not just trying to sell you a book so I can fly my family to London to take them out to eat at Chef Ramsey’s signature restaurant again. The book has been out for a few years now, and it’s done what I intended.  But it would help everyone with this current crisis.  At the point where I wrote that book, I had watched for decades as consultants gutted the businesses they intended to help, because they were essentially parasites by nature.  Not that they meant to be that way, but that was their character.  And when it comes to all these affordability problems, it has been layers of Marxism hiding behind capitalism for a long time that caused the problem, and by another kind of evil, that is precisely what is driving people toward more Marxism because the consultants have essentially blamed the free market for everything, when it is too much tampering and collective value that has caused all the trouble.  So with this debate fully resurrected in a healthy Trump economy, it’s time to talk about the details, and when it comes to that, I literally wrote the book on the subject.  Something I have found is that everyone else in the consulting firms is only dancing around because they can’t look in the mirror and admit they’ve always been part of the problem.

Rich Hoffman

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

Public Schools Were Designed By Dumb People to Make More Dumb People: Dewey always wanted communism

I’ve always been consistent on homeschooling issues; I’ve never thought that the public education system was any good.  In a conversation the other day with some people, they asked me about this, and I always hate answering the question because the essential elements aren’t very complimentary.  The person I was talking to said about themselves, “I’m not very smart, I barely made it through school myself, so I wouldn’t want to harm my kids by teaching them.  I would rather have a professional do it.”  I hate that conversation because it forces you to admit to how stupid most people are, which makes it hard to deal with them willingly.  I don’t have that confidence problem.  I think I can do everything, including working on my car, better than other people and feel better equipped to do it.  Especially teaching my kids.  I think the public education system was set up wrong from the start, and I’ve never been a fan, including in my own school days. I was friends with several honors-type students who were very high-IQ, genius-level students, and I watched how the school leeched off them.  There was nothing for the school to add to their education because all the people teaching those kids were stupid.  And you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, but usually, people who choose to become school teachers aren’t the best and brightest; otherwise, they would try to make a go of things in the private sector, where they could make a lot of money.  The people who end up teaching are often like the person who was talking to me about public school —they aren’t the brightest our society has to offer.  Neither my wife nor my children finished their senior year of school; they graduated during their junior year.  They did graduate, but they never attended the ceremony, and none of them has ever looked back. 

Government schools are big business. Look how much money was raised by Lakota schools to pass the biggest tax increase in Ohio’s history!

Both of my children spent their senior years traveling Europe to finish their education, and we never sit around wishing they had done anything different.  If anything, we talk about wanting to homeschool them earlier.  A few times during their junior high years, we tried it, but family members really got in the way and were grotesquely unsupportive.  The experience was so bad that we pulled our kids out of school anyway and just finished their education online.  And that was twenty years ago.  There are many more options available now.  We had a close-knit family, so it was hard to ignore their opinions, and back then, those opinions mattered a lot more than they do today.  And, as always, the public school experience —the other kids, the employees, the choice of what to teach—was all constructed by stupid people so that kids can grow up to become more stupid people, and I can’t support that process. Instead, my view of education is that it is far more valuable than the public school system was designed to facilitate.  As I have always said, when John Dewey designed public education, it was made to teach communism.  Not how to teach kids how to think.  And I find it despicable.  I have tried to let other people change my mind, but over time, I have become even more firm in my positions because nobody has ever been able to, even though I have tried to give them the space to do so.  They have never been able to change my mind, even when given more than enough of a fair chance. 

During one of the previous No Lakota Tax campaigns, years ago, the standard teacher’s union complaint has always been classroom sizes, and that was their justification for needing more tax money to hire more teachers to reduce classroom sizes.  I said on the radio, on television, and in public forums that the reason was that the teachers were too lazy to teach a lot of kids, and that all that extra money was essentially to fund laziness.  So they got mad and challenged me to come into the school to teach a class myself so I could find out just how hard it was.  So I went to Lakota East and sat down in one of the classrooms to accept the challenge.  Kids and staff from Spark Magazine, which is a published magazine for the Lakota school system that goes out to a lot of people in a big district full of over 100,000 people, met me to propose the challenge, which they thought I would shy away from at the last minute.  I told them I was ready to teach not just one class, but four at once.  Bring four classrooms into the auditorium, and I would teach them all personally, any subject they wanted to cover, for as long as they could handle.  Now you have to understand that I work an average of 15 hours a day, most days of the week.  And my mind never stops working.  I have been married for more than 37 years and now have grandchildren.  This challenge was about 10 years ago, but I was pretty much the same as I am now.  Teaching a class is something I would call very easy. 

They chickened out because the teachers balked at the proposal.  They didn’t want me to make them look bad, and whenever there has been a public debate on the matter, they never hold up and are easily defeated.  And not to rub salt in the wound, but I have never met a person better equipped to teach any of my children or grandchildren anything, better than me.  And I know a lot of people.  I know a lot of people who think of themselves as brilliant.  And I would say none of them are better at teaching my children anything.  It’s lazy to drop a kid off at school and turn that vital task over to a professional.  So with all that in mind, remember, public schools were designed to teach kids the emerging communism of Karl Marx in those pre-Civil War days.  They were never intended to produce the next generation of geniuses.  And I expect my kids and my grandkids to be the best people they can be.  To elaborate on the point, I will put up some videos here of one of my grandsons and his dad, who have a weekly YouTube channel that I think is pretty neat.   It shows just how important it is to teach a child from a parent, and it’s so much better than the public school experience.  I think that my youngest grandson has a chance to be the next Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein.  The public school system does not make those types of people, and if it were effective, they certainly would.  So if we want people to live up to their full potential, you have to get them as far away from the public school system as possible.  And the truth is, most parents are too lazy to give their kids that chance.  And it’s a shame.  I feel sorry for every kid whose parent is too lazy to homeschool them.  My experience with it is that kids become so much better when they don’t have to endure the corrosive effects of being taught by grown adults to be dumb.  Because public school was designed by communists who wanted to suppress intellect, not expand it, and until we deal with that truth, we will continue to be very disappointed by the results.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Real Way to Get Peace in the Middle East: Going door to door where evil lives and thrives

I think it’s nice that Trump did a deal to get the hostages back in Israel.  But the cause of the trouble between the Palestinian’s and Israel was not present at that peace negotiation.  The politicians are not the cause of the conflict, and if we really want to solve the problem and bring peace to the Middle East, then the source of that trouble will have to be eliminated.  I recommend performing that task without any state involvement.  The United States doesn’t need to commit ground troops toward lasting peace.  All it needs to do is step aside and give contractors a “get out of jail free card.”  To allow contractors to go into the Gaza Strip and go door to door, eliminating the perpetrators of violence.  When you travel through the area, you can learn a lot about a culture, and one of the most dominant influences in their bookstores is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.  The people who order those books to be sold, and the publishers who knowingly try to keep that kind of anger alive by blowing on the embers of evil, are the cause of the trouble, and they’ll have to be eliminated.  And until we are willing to play that game, there will be no peace, anywhere, not in the Middle East, nor on American college campuses.  The enemy lives in the minds of the vacant, empty souls of evil who want people to fight in a bloody conflict for all kinds of terrible reasons.  Everyone may clap that some tortured souls who managed to live through that captivity were returned to their families.  But the problem is far from solved.  Nobody could blame Trump for trying.  Yet the solution is still lingering in the tunnels and back rooms of the Gaza Strip, and many other places around Israel, and they are planting the demise of the Jewish country as we speak. 

Hamas had its money dry up after the bombing of Iran, and Trump has put everyone on their heels, including Qatar, who are the primary sponsors of terror in the region, and they want Israel wiped from the face of the earth.  I have a unique understanding of this problem from the science side, and the battle over the Temple Mount is the key to it.  The Arabs are never going to get over what the British did to them over Sykes-Picot after World War I, and how they felt double-crossed at the end of World War II, when the United Nations decided to give the Jewish people their own country, and Israel was created in what the Palestinians considered their land.  But this fight, as Trump said, goes back many thousands of years to when Yahweh encouraged the Hebrew people, the Jews, to raid the land of Canaan and resettle the land righteously for them.  And all that went well beyond 4000 years ago, even further to the land dispute that God was clearly very aggressive about.  And since that time —the First Temple period, especially with Solomon and King David’s threshing floor —the dispute has continued, with no end in sight.  The Jewish people were constantly attacked and removed from the land and dispersed as exiles all over the world.  Until the United Nations came along and imposed a Jewish state, and everyone had to get along with the idea, which has caused all the wars there for all these years.  Looming always in the background is the hostile views of the Muslim community toward all outsiders, which feeds the anger of pitting the Quran against the Holy Bible as a source document for understanding eternity. 

Knowing Trump had everyone pegged down for destruction, the Palestinian movement is going back underground while the politicians save themselves from financial destruction and give Trump what he wants.  Visible peace in the Middle East so that they aren’t crushed by the aggression of a much stronger enemy, the United States.  They only made a deal because Iran has fallen apart, the Marxism of the area behind the teachings of the Quran is being challenged by populism, so they are, for their own preservation, making a show of peace for the cameras.  The real solution will be to eliminate the leaders of discontent, as in the United States.  There are a lot of voices hiding behind what they think are Constitutional protections of free speech, who are outright anti-American terrorists, and they will stop at nothing to destroy those they don’t like.  Look at the youth movement behind the killing of Charlie Kirk.  Those kids didn’t come up with those thoughts on their own. Instead, they received their thinking from influences who are still very much at work and just holding their nose through Trump’s terms in office.  That same radicalism showed itself on ABC News when George Stephonopolis cut off Vice President J.D. Vance during a Sunday show recently.  They are all united behind a curtain of discontent and just waiting for Trump to be removed from the world stage.  And a future president was treated like a rag doll by those same elements, disrespectfully cutting him off to show him disrespect purposely.  That’s the kind of evil that puts those books in the book stores of the Middle East, from Egypt to Turkey, and everything to the East, all the way over to India. 

The best way to deal with these terrorists who hide behind polite society is to hire contractors to eliminate them, $100K per head.  Cut off the enemy’s head and put it in a bag for payment by an independent contributor.  Keep the states out of it and fight this battle away from the borders of nations, but door to door, where the bad guys really live, and create so much purposeful, strategic hate, to destabilize society to the liking of evil.  I would volunteer for that kind of thing, and many people could get very rich as privateers, much as it was in the golden age of piracy.  There are plenty of ways to do it, and all that would be needed from a country like America is to leave the process alone.  Let contractors go into Gaza and collect the heads of the terrorists.  Everyone knows where they live; go in and get them.  Take the terror to their doorsteps and save the ink on the peace deals.  Because as long as they are allowed to live, they will seek to bring evil into the world.  And that goes for areas outside of the Middle East as well.  Even in New York City or Chicago.  The Antifa terrorists of Portland.  They are being crushed now by a Trump administration willing to perform the task.  But the evil is still lingering, going underground.  And it’s there where evil must be hunted, door to door, and with soldiers of fortune carrying around pillow bags to carry the heads of their trophies.  Turn those kinds of people loose, pay them well under the table, and attack the rats where they live.  Don’t let them continue to publish books like Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Or even to burn down churches in Paris in the name of the Quran.  That hatred even found expression in the creation of the Quran in 610 AD by Muhammad, which sought to displace the emerging Christian movement that had united the Roman Empire in 313 AD.  These were not religious pursuits intended to gain entry into the gates of heaven, but rather to destabilize the governments of the world through military raids.  And that same youth is being corrupted everywhere in the world at the point of learning.  And it’s a real threat to any potential peace efforts.  That is, unless you physically remove the perpetrators with door-to-door contractors.  And speak the only language those kinds of enemies understand, ruthless violence, mercifully applied to the root cause of evil itself.  And nothing less.

Rich Hoffman

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

Under New Management: Why companies fail and how leadership works

All over my town of West Chester, Ohio, there are signs everywhere indicating that new management is running a business.  Most of them are restaurants and bars, but they have been unusually placed in front of all kinds of companies, even manufacturing facilities.  Which was another thing I said would happen as a result of the catastrophic stupidity of COVID, where a global Marxist strategy of micromanaging how people were going to do work was imposed on all of us through the ridiculous means of a doctor’s office.  White coat losers in the form of health professionals were trying to scare us into open socialism, and it was always going to be a disaster.  And now, five years later, the world has turned to populism, specifically to capitalism.  If you really want to get philosophical about the Trump administration at this particular time, it’s because the human race knows what’s good for it, and all forms of Marxism have not been it.  There was never a plan for Trump to be in any authority position.  The plan was to take over mass society and make people afraid of a virus that was made in a Chinese lab, by people who wanted to make a bioweapon to use against the world, to steal elections, and take over economies.  People saw this happening, and they put Trump in office as the rest of the world has been supporting their own version of pro-capitalist populism.  Its not because they were that great of a candidate, but because people didn’t like the direction the world was turning, which brought about out of desperation, the Covid year of 2020 and the complete collapse of the global economy that was so tragic that most people didn’t even want to discuss what happened because they wanted so badly to put it out of their minds. 

So the mindset of the economic shutdowns has taken a few years to recover from, and it has taken a while for people to get their feet under them again.  And what we’re talking about are all the DEI hires and the work-from-home mentality that has been socially disastrous—social policy cooked up in a lab, with everyone’s books open to Karl Marx’s literature.  Even Microsoft was in on the gag, trying to push everyone into Teams meetings from home in their pajamas.  Nobody was betting on a complete economic recovery in those dark months of 2021, as Biden took office, Trump was forced into exile, and Covid protocols were imposing themselves on every one of us.  People should have been more intelligent to see the obvious.  We were under attack by an extensively laid plan of a complete Marxist takeover of the world.  And I said it at the time, and said all this was going to happen.  Nobody listened until it was too late.  And I would go around town and talk about all the businesses that were working from home, and how they were going to fail, and all the fast food places that closed their dining rooms because they didn’t have enough staff to stay open.  I told everyone what was going to happen, and now it is.  And I saw it clearly because of the way I live my life, in front of the train. At the same time, most of the world lives in the back, where it’s safe.  We’re talking about Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality as he talked about it in the great book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  It’s a very popular book, though largely misunderstood.  Its sequel, Lila, has not been read by millions, but by a very select few in the world who are audacious rarities. 

The metaphysics of quality, as I explained in my video with a train roaring by, is essentially a perspective on leadership and decision-making. Outstanding leadership is done at the front of a metaphorical train, where you can see what’s coming as it approaches.  You can turn the train, slow it down, tell people what you see coming.  But most people don’t dare to lead from the front.  So they have built an administrative bureaucracy in the back of the train to provide analysis, which is useful.  But it’s not leadership because by the time the moving train reaches the point of decision, the caboose has passed it entirely too late.  Decisions have to be made at the front to ensure the quality people expect.  That is why great generals who lead from the front are great.   Great business leaders are so rare.  And why political efforts succeed or fail.  If leadership is at the back of the train, a management effort will likely fail every time.  If, under scarce circumstances, an organizational leader is at the front of the train —where few people dare to be —then great success is possible.  Success that is often beyond people’s wildest dreams.  So when a business is failing and wants the public to know they are making changes, they put up signs saying they are under new management, hoping people will give them a second chance in the economy, implying that their leadership change will be different.  After COVID, a lot of companies got suckered and put their leaders all in the back of the train, where it was safe, and it was a disaster for the world’s economy under a hostile takeover. 

Karl Marx was always an idiot and a coward.  He died broke because he was a back-of-the-train theorist.  The world is full of them.  But because there were a lot of cowards in the world who ended up in government, health care, and were second-generation titans of industry who didn’t have the same guts their previous generation had, they adopted Marxism to hide what losers they were.  But in a marketplace where free will is expected, that kind of back-of-the-train micromanagement was never going to work.  And I said so all along.  And now that the money is flowing again and Trump is back in the White House, leading from the front, it has exposed this plan for the fraud it was.  And now everyone is scrambling to find people at the front of the train, and their “under new management” signs are hopes that people will assume that there is leadership at the front of the train instead of everyone functioning from the back, where all the wimps hang out.  And that’s why there are suddenly so many signs.  At least the owners of these businesses are trying.  But it shows clearly the danger that arises when we micromanage society, with back-of-the-train personalities who are not equipped to lead.  Even in a bar or nightclub, where leadership isn’t even considered.  People expect the lights to work and the beer to be cold.  And when everyone is hiding in the back of the train, they often order those things too late to arrive for a Friday night gathering that nobody thought would happen because of COVID social distancing rules.  Only people in the front of the train were ready, because they saw well in advance what a dumb idea everything was.  And most businesses that lacked those unique personalities failed, are now trying to recover, and want the world to know they are looking for front-of-the-train management.  And even if they haven’t yet found them, they are at least looking.

Rich Hoffman

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

Defending Erika Kirk: Democrats make themselves victims over everything, conservatives don’t

There is a lot to talk about regarding Erika Kirk and the reaction that many left-leaning people have had about her during the memorial for her husband, Charlie, who was recently murdered.  This is part of a larger study that we need to conduct to determine whether we can all coexist in the same world.  What people think and why is often very dangerous, and we have to start thinking about those types of things realistically.  Having personal freedom does not mean the same thing to all people, so it’s nearly impossible to have a meaningful and structured society when everyone doesn’t agree on what “good” is.  And that was never more apparent than in how people from the political left viewed the way that Erika Kirk dealt with her husband’s death, which was a very public enterprise.  Turning Point USA is a group of young people who have fully committed to the pursuit of conservative freedom and spiritual alignment. As such, nothing was shocking about their memorial service, especially for those who attend church on Sunday, a common occurrence, especially at large mega churches.  The Turning Point memorial for Charlie Kirk was held in a stadium in Arizona, which filled to an overflow crowd outside.  So it was an experience that godless heathens from the Marxist left could not understand.  And they certainly didn’t understand Erika Kirk’s approach to life in the wake of her husband’s death.  Because Erika was able to speak to people and contain her emotions, wear makeup, and dress well, people are suspicious of her and are talking about it extensively.  Those types of people would understand Erika better if she fell off the fence and went on a drunken binge, as other left-leaning people do.  But because she was able to hold it all together, people are very suspicious, even conspiratorial. 

This raises an essential point about society in general: conservatives tend to be above-the-line thinkers, meaning they take responsibility for their actions and are always looking for ways to improve things.  Where Democrats are often perceived as perpetual victims who look to society to fill in the gaps, they are below-the-line thinkers, as we call them in business – people who prioritize their own needs over others’ positive efforts, seeking to live off the positive efforts of others for their basic sustenance.  So when faced with a crisis, and a deeply emotional circumstance, Erika Kirk did as conservative women tend to, she looked for proactive measures to accommodate her very negative feelings on the murder of her husband, and the loss of the father of her very young children, with proactive positions.  And that came out in her various speeches.  Now Charlie would be very proud of Erika, including her walking out onto the stage to give a speech on behalf of her husband, accompanied by rock concert-like pyrotechnic effects that juiced things up for the audience.  Democrats in that same situation would be looking for excuses to fall apart, because that is their natural state of existence.  They would want to become intoxicated, to dress all in black, and to cry instantly, drawing attention to themselves so that people would feel sorry for them.  That is what all Democrats do; it’s what separates them from the rest of the world.  It is what makes them broken people and social menaces to themselves and others.  They could not understand a person like Erika Kirk, who had the personal strength to speak to the public so soon after Charlie’s murder and would even go to the trouble to put on some makeup to make herself presentable.  

Again, Turning Point USA excels at the entertainment aspect of their political efforts, and it should come as no surprise that they leveraged the memorial service to amplify their efforts.  Charlie Kirk would certainly approve, as he poured his life into the conservative movement and would undoubtedly appreciate how his memorial service was handled, including the way President Trump spoke during it.  It might be hard for Democrats to understand, but that doesn’t make it a vast conspiracy.  I’m sure Erika Kirk had to do a lot of acting to get through those few weeks, where she felt like shutting the world out while she grieved.  But she married a very public husband who had been very publicly assassinated. So to do him justice, she had to address that public in a very public way.  So she had to dig deep to get there, and what she did was conducive to the way that above-the-line people approach life in general.  People derive the strength they need from compelling leadership personalities.  Don’t cry about things that you can solve for yourself.  And don’t go out of your way for pity from a public that should never be in a position to give it to you.  That is, in general, the way that conservatives approach their business, and it’s very different than those who are attracted to social management in the form of Marxism, where the down and out want to stay that way so they have an excuse for all their bad decisions in life.  They don’t want people like Erika Kirk to put pressure on them to be better than they otherwise dare to be.  They want to be victims in life and cannot imagine taking charge as a reaction to tragedy. 

Without question, there is a lot wrong with the Charlie Kirk murder that should be a lot more forthcoming.  With Kash Patel, a friend of Charlie Kirk, in charge of the FBI, many people expect better, proactive answers.  However, we are dealing with a deep and elusive evil that operates in the background in a manner that is very difficult for people to confront.  So I don’t know that Turning Point USA and Erika Kirk are willing to just move on from the motivations of Charlie’s killer and to take the surface investigations all too quickly.  But part of the way that evil hides in the background, and into the lives of below-the-line Democrats, is in the notion that putting trust in Christ will rid them of the burden of carrying the cross, so to speak.  And when Erika said she forgave the murderer of her husband, she was also putting the burden of that anger aside, which is a consistent Christian means of dealing with stress.  And I attribute that to the Turning Point USA position in general, with Charlie Kirk, who wants to get back to the business of what Charlie stood for, rather than spending a lot of time crying over his loss.  For conservatives, the goal is to get out the message uninterrupted.  Not being encumbered with grief and misery.  Democrats don’t and will never understand a proactive approach to misery, so to fill their void, they will resort to conspiracy theories.   When in truth, they don’t have it in them to think in any other way than to be broken people.  Democrats are broken people who seek attention in times of crises because they feed off pity and emotional distress, which is why they are dangerous to society in general.  We can’t have all these different people working toward the exact same social necessities when they are so far apart.  And that has been grotesquely obvious in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder.  We’ve learned many hard truths in the wake of it that will require real action in the future.

Rich Hoffman

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

We Are Not Better Together: The illusion of leadership

Let’s clear some things up right now, because I’m tired of hearing the term.  We are not better together.  More minds do not make something better.  These are dumb, communist ideas by outside influencers who have tried over time to slide dumb ideas about how society should be structured under the door and have left us with a lot of garbage like that term to muddle through.  I receive numerous emails from people, and someone sent me one of those LinkedIn links to a statement from a consultant group about leadership, as if to refute my position on the matter. I had to give that person a healthy dose of reality.   More is not always better.  More administrative minds do not improve processes. Instead, you often get the opposite; usually, you end up with more of a mess than any improvement.  If you want to improve something, identify your leader and then listen to them.  But don’t think that a bunch of useless people meandering through life can come together and improve something.  It never works.  The concept of teamwork has been grossly misused to incorporate elements of Marxism over the years through our public education system, and it was always a flawed idea. I think the reason for this was best captured in books like Robert Persig’s ideas on the Metaphysics of Quality.  His metaphor of people who sit in the back of a moving train is a particularly apt one that accurately reflects the truth in this matter.  Good leaders are at the front of the train where things can be seen as they are happening.  But most of the world sits in the back, where it’s safe, and analyzes data that has already passed.  It can be helpful information, but that’s not leadership.  And the communist societies of the world have tried to sell cowardice that way to make the timid feel like they were equal to good leaders.  And they are not. 

That is where most consultants get things wrong, and LinkedIn is full of those types of people who attend all the business seminars and listen to all that “team building” nonsense, such as the idea that no one person has all the answers and that more minds are better than just one.  What causes trouble in cultures that need leadership is the presence of committees, where administrative types try to lead an organization from the back of the train, rather than from the front, where they belong.  And often up front, where things are scary and coming fast, most people don’t have the guts to live there.  They always pick where it’s safe and build their 9-to-5 lives around the value of analysis, often from the caboose of a train, complete with lots of spreadsheets and graphs, but without the voice of leadership to guide the timid toward greatness.  Good leaders are listened to, not debated with.  So, any culture that wants to succeed needs to hear more than hold hands in the back of the train while the world outside moves quickly.  Leadership is not safe; it’s usually hazardous, and it requires a lot of toughness that most people never develop in their lives.  That doesn’t make those people useless.  However, they are unable to lead because they never developed the stomach for the rigors of the leadership task.  They have come up with all kinds of excuses why failure is best elevated in group consensus rather than the responsibility of leadership at the front of the train, where things are much more dangerous.

I’ve heard every excuse in the book as to why most people prefer the back of the train as opposed to where leadership lives, at the front.  They say, people, say dumb things like, “I don’t want the stress and want to avoid a heart attack.”  Or they will point to the need for time to decompress after work.  All they are doing is telling the world that they aren’t tough enough to be a leader of an organization and that they prefer the back of the train, where things are safe, and where they can share the experience with others holding hands for safety and security.  And it’s those types of people who want to believe that more is better and that no one mind is better than a collective whole.  This is the kind of flawed thinking that assumes the United Nations is better as a one-world government than the individual results of leadership that come from the United States, for instance.  You don’t see that the United Nations has accomplished much over the years to bring the kind of peace it has always intended.  It takes a strong individual country like the United States to provide that leadership.  And that same mentality could be applied to every organization; if a strong leader isn’t leading it, it is, to some degree, inefficient and destructive.  The only real way to pull off the illusion that more is better is to stop the train, which is impossible in day-to-day life.  But for the fantasy to work, the trains of life can’t be moving so that all those in the back can analyze data and make decisions in time to do something about it, which is unrealistic.  Trains are constantly moving, and they require sharp, focused minds to be at the front of the train, leading everyone at the cutting edge. 

I’m usually nice to people who send me stupid ideas like this one, the LinkedIn warriors who buy into all the corporate placations created by consultants who are leeching off the profitability of the few.  Consultants like teachers do what they do not because they are good or the best in their field.  Occasionally, you find an exception, but not very often, certainly not often enough to alter the statistical analysis.  What you get are people who lack the courage to lead an organization and try to sell companies on a scam that more analysis from the back of the train will help a struggling company.  However, as soon as the consultant leaves with their misguided ideas of ‘better together,’ the organization falls back into its previous state because it failed to identify its leaders and place them in the correct positions to succeed.  And success is usually found by shutting up and listening to a leader, not in building consensus with a bunch of people in the back of the fast-moving train who are too timid to do what it takes to lead people.  To conceal their timidity from the world, they have adopted these misguided notions about leadership, none of which are accurate.  And they have made a mess out of the world at every level.  So, if you really want to fix anything, figure out who you are: either a back-of-the-train analysis cruncher who likes things safe and secure, or a daring, cutting-edge type who will go it alone and make decisions where they matter, and tell people behind them what to do and when to do it.  If you find a good leader, you’ll find a successful organization.  However, once that leader is gone, the people are left without direction and powerless to improve their lives, and this is the case in almost every circumstance.  We are not better together.  We are better when those people shut up, and listen to the leader among them.  And then, and only then, does everything get better for everyone.

Rich Hoffman

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The Painted Concrete: Let the lover leave and learn the hard way

In the unfolding political drama of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has emerged as a compelling figure—a charismatic, progressive candidate whose platform promises sweeping reforms aimed at increasing affordability, promoting equity, and advancing social justice. As a self-described democratic socialist, Mamdani has galvanized a significant portion of the electorate, particularly younger voters and working-class communities, with proposals that include rent freezes, city-owned grocery stores, fare-free public transportation, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. His campaign is not just a political movement; it is a cultural moment, a rebellion against the status quo, and a romanticized vision of a city reimagined through socialist ideals.

But beneath the surface of this enthusiasm lies a more profound concern—one that echoes through history and personal experience alike. The allure of radical change, especially when framed as a rebellion against perceived injustice, often blinds people to the long-term consequences of their decisions. Just as the excitement of an affair might tempt a spouse, voters may be seduced by the promises of a candidate like Mamdani, not because they fully understand or agree with his policies, but because they are rebelling against what they see as a broken system. The danger is not in the ideas themselves, but in the romanticization of rebellion, in the belief that anything different must be better.

And I would argue that sometimes the most effective way to confront such movements is not through resistance, but through allowance. Let the people vote for Mamdani. Let them experience the reality of his policies. Let them see, before it’s too late, what socialism and communism look like when implemented in a city as complex and economically diverse as New York. The goal is not to punish or shame, but to reveal—to strip away the green paint from the concrete and expose the cold, hard surface beneath.  When they say the grass is always greener on the other side, let them discover that it’s really just painted concrete, a cold and complex reality.

Mamdani’s platform is a communist one. He proposes freezing rent for nearly a million New Yorkers, building 200,000 affordable housing units, and strengthening tenant protections through expanded enforcement. He wants to create city-owned grocery stores that bypass traditional market mechanisms, eliminate bus fares, and provide free childcare for all children under the age of five. These ideas are undeniably appealing, especially to those struggling with the city’s high cost of living. But they also represent a fundamental shift away from market capitalism toward centralized control—a shift that history has shown to be fraught with unintended consequences.

I would attribute this lucrative challenge to the heartbreak of a cheating spouse. When someone is determined to leave, to chase the illusion of something better, no amount of pleading or logic will stop them. The best course of action, I would argue, is to open the window and let them go. Let them discover that the grass on the other side is not greener, but painted. Let them roll around in it and feel the concrete beneath. Only then will they understand the value of what they left behind.

This metaphor applies seamlessly to the current political climate. Mamdani’s rise is not just about policy—it’s about emotion, rebellion, and the seductive appeal of radical change. His supporters are not merely voting for a candidate; they are voting against a system they believe has failed them. They are climbing out the window, chasing a lover across town, convinced that the romance of socialism will heal their wounds. But romance fades, and reality sets in. The cost of these policies—economic stagnation, reduced investment, increased taxation, and bureaucratic inefficiency—will eventually become clear. And when it does, the pain will be real.

Rather than trying to stop this movement through opposition, a wiser strategy may be to let it unfold. Let Mamdani win. Let his policies be implemented. Let New York become the case study in what happens when idealism overrides pragmatism. This is not a call for sabotage or cynicism, but for strategic patience. Just as a parent might let a child touch a hot stove to learn a lesson, the city may need to feel the heat of socialism to understand its consequences.

This approach is not without risk. The damage could be significant, including economic decline, increased dependency, and a loss of competitiveness. But the alternative—prolonged resistance that only fuels the romanticism of rebellion—may be worse. By fighting against Mamdani’s movement, opponents risk turning him into a martyr, a symbol of suppressed hope. By letting him lead, they allow reality to do the teaching.

In business, this principle is well understood. Companies that fail to address cultural issues—such as a lack of motivation, poor work ethic, and resistance to change—cannot be saved by spreadsheets and whiteboards. They must confront the root of the problem, even if it means letting certain elements fail. Only then can proper restructuring occur. The same applies to politics. If voters are determined to embrace a candidate like Mamdani, let them. Let them see the results. Let them learn.

This strategy also respects the intelligence and autonomy of the electorate. It does not treat voters as children to be protected from themselves, but as adults capable of learning through experience. It acknowledges that people are not always honest with themselves or others, that they often need to see the consequences of their actions before they can change. It is a strategy rooted in respect, not condescension.

Mamdani’s campaign is built on the promise of a better life. He speaks to the pain of working-class families, the frustration of workers, and the despair of renters. He offers solutions that are bold, compassionate, and deeply appealing in their communist utterances. But he also represents a shift toward centralized control, higher taxes, and reduced market freedom. These are not just policy choices—they are philosophical ones. And they carry consequences that must be understood, not just imagined.

My advice—to let people go, to let them experience the consequences—is not about giving up. It is about choosing the most effective path to truth. It is about trusting that reality, not rhetoric, will ultimately shape public opinion. It is about believing that people, once they see the results of their choices, will return with a clearer understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

In the case of New York, this means allowing Mamdani’s vision to be put to the test. Let the city-owned grocery stores open. Let the rent freezes take effect. Let the buses run for free. And then, let the city measure the impact. Let businesses respond. Let investors react. Let residents feel the impact of these changes in their daily lives. The results will speak louder than any campaign ad or political debate.

This is not a strategy of cruelty, but of clarity. It is rooted in the belief that truth is the most potent force in politics. And sometimes, the only way to reach it is through experience. Just as a spouse who leaves for an affair may eventually return with a new appreciation for what they had, voters who embrace socialism will look back and see the value of market capitalism. But they must be allowed to make that journey.

Do not romanticize rebellion. Do not make it more appealing by resisting it. Instead, strip away the romance. Let reality do the work. Let people see the painted grass for what it is. Let them feel the concrete. And when they do, be there to help them rebuild—not with bitterness, but with wisdom.  Zohran Mamdani’s campaign represents a decisive moment in New York’s political history. It is a movement driven by hope, frustration, and the desire for change. But it is also a test—a test of ideas, of governance, and of the electorate’s ability to learn through experience. The best way to meet this moment is not through resistance, but through revelation. Let Mamdani lead. Let his policies be implemented. Let the city feel the consequences. And then, let the truth emerge. In that truth lies the path to real progress, grounded not in fantasy but in reality.

Rich Hoffman

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Proverbs 22:7: Why America rules over the rest of the world

It is a topic that has come up a lot, especially since Trump has been trying to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine and end the war there.  Why the United States?  Why do we get to set a dollar standard?  Why do airports have to speak English universally?  Why is it that the United States thinks it needs to be, or can be, involved in the world’s affairs?  How can the world be equal if the United States consistently views itself as the best or wealthiest country in the world, and that somehow gives it power over all other countries?  And the answer is simple: only the United States has adopted capitalism as an economic model, while all other countries in the world have some degree of socialism in their economies, which restricts their financial growth.  A friend of mine recently brought this to my attention with a nice quote from Proverbs 22:7, which says, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”  And that’s very true.  If a country penalizes itself from wealth creation, it loses the ability to be equal in any discussion.  And being poor, especially by choice, will always leave a member of a negotiating party at a disadvantage.  America has the power that it does because it’s a rich country, and it’s rich because of capitalism.  And you’d think other countries would have woken up to that fact, because they are poor by choice.  The reason America has the power and influence it does is that it has a population of only 300 million, yet it produces the largest GDP in the world, competing directly with countries like China and India, which have populations of over a billion each.  Because all other countries in the world have adopted Marxist ideas, they have limited their wealth generation and ultimately their influence at the table regarding the fate of the world.

The issue of fairness arises frequently in these discussions.  Is it fair that the world is designed like this, where human beings are valued more for their wealth than for their better values, which reflect power and influence?  It’s a matter of leverage; people in the world want money and will do this or that or something else to get it.  And when too many artificial restrictions are created to access money, then naturally, people with less of it are on the wrong side of any negotiations.  So, by choice, those who have very little money are in that position because they chose to do other things than make money, and the world does not honor their choice. We have invented money and wealth as measures of achievement, and in all human cultures, achievement is highly respected.  Gaining wealth is a measure that, by default, is universally understood by all people.  And to lobby for making some other value more critical, such as compassion for the weak, or valuing vacations over working too hard, will ultimately leave the one without money at a disadvantage, leveraged by those who do control the money, because they have more of it.  Money comes in many forms but what the book of Proverbs has always struggled with as a foundation of Christianity for instance, because even Jesus struggled with this problem by attacking the vendors at the Temple which led to his crucifixion, is that the meek are overlooked and often oppressed by the rich people of the world, and that everlasting life in Heaven might give them relief from that reality.  This is a debate that has been ongoing since the beginning of time, but the rules have remained unchanged—he who owns the gold rules.

Trump has been effective because he understands how to control leverage in negotiations, as he always puts himself on the side of smart money.  And whoever does that will win the argument every time.  Not some of the time.  All of the time.   And the question of fairness is then a universal law that is the same here as it would be on the other side of a black hole in space, on the other side of reality.  This rule would never change.  The Bible struggled with the same idea: what power does the Lord in Heaven have over the earth if people will do anything for money and what it can buy.  And the answer is a hard one, because money represents wealth creation and how people measure such things in polite society.  The rest of the world has chosen to rebel against the premise of money, and they counted on peer pressure to create other value systems that the world respected, such as transgender rights, or helping people experiencing poverty when people have been deliberately made poor with terrible social policy.  For instance, because of capitalism, a poor person in America is infinitely wealthier than a person in a Marxist hellhole, like some African country that has deliberately suppressed capitalism.  Their poor state is a result of a desire to control wealth creation, so that people can be ruled over, and that they won’t acquire personal wealth to compete with their overlords.  When a government seeks to exert power over its people, it must limit their access to wealth so that private individuals cannot undermine the government’s authority over them.  So that decision ultimately constricts their ability to generate wealth. 

Trump has spent his life accumulating wealth, and his ability to do so has given him the capacity to negotiate at multiple levels.  Being rich for him means he gets to win the argument.  And from that perspective, he can command the world to sit at his feet, as the members of NATO remarkably did in front of his desk in the Oval Office recently, after Vladimir Putin came to Alaska to visit with Trump after quite a spectacle.  The world came to Trump to appease him because of the power of the American economy.  And because they don’t have money themselves, due to poor economic decisions, they find themselves at a disadvantage in the discussions they have with all other parties.  With all the talk about Russian power and military might, it’s worth noting that they don’t have a very robust economy, which leaves them at a disadvantage at the negotiating table.  People can talk about how mean Putin is as a tyrant, but because of his need to maintain control over his people, the Russian economy is too restricted and always at a disadvantage to a capitalist country like the United States.  And when push comes to shove, the capitalist country will always outleverage the authoritarian government that has put too many barriers on personal wealth.  So that is why America plays the role in the world that it does.  Fairness is a sentiment, not a value.  It’s an intellectual observation that doesn’t align with the realities of the world.  Jesus might have struggled with the same issue involving the money changers at the temple, as many are declaring that America shouldn’t have the kind of power in the world that it does.  However, it has that power because humans use money to measure value, and value is derived from the things we do.  And when things are restricted by policy, then who is to blame?  Or, if individuals refuse to work, they are always at a disadvantage in life compared to those who work hard and have financial means.  Who is to blame?  America has given upward mobility to many people through the premise of freedom.  And that is why the United States has a better leverage position over all other countries that are too restrictive on individual wealth creation.  And in that moral quandary is the ethics of wealth creation, and why the world is much better off because of it.

Rich Hoffman

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