Tag: warrior

Why You Should Dump Disney Stock Now: The mistakes made on ‘Force Awakens’ will compound the failure of ESPN

On a day where every media outlet in the world is declaring the new Star Wars film an earth shattering success, I’ll take a little pride in being the only one to point at the doom on the horizon.  In a lot of ways I’ll admit hope, as often does happen—more than you’d think—that some executive at Disney will read what I write here and make the market corrections needed—and save the only company in the world truly dedicated to family entertainment.  But they won’t.  Disney is not run by a strong CEO like it was when Walt Disney ran the company years ago.  It’s now run by committees of people—and within those committees are people who seek such a management method because they lack personal courage.  Without personal courage and risk, the market potency of a company and its products surrenders box office appeal, and ultimately profits.  That is essentially what is wrong with the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens.  As much as I wanted to like the film—and still do in fact—the business side of my brain sees more alarms going off in the cockpit of this starship than it can withstand.  Destruction is imminent.  So I’m headed for an escape pod before the entire thing falls apart.  If you have Disney stock, you should sell it right now because the value will tank very shortly and it will never recover.

Out of all the possibilities and horsepower of Lucasfilm—with all the talent at their disposal—they as a company elected to treat their long line of New York Times bestselling novels like a story treatment for a Hollywood movie.  The writing was on the wall when they released the comic series The Star Wars two years ago by Dark Horse comics justifying their decisions to mine the expanded universe and re-write it putting their committee stamp on the material proclaiming that what they did was better.  Rather than sit down with a good writer like Lawrence Kasdan is and have him write completely new material, like he did for the Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lucasfilm under Kathy Kennedy decided to make a reboot of A New Hope and populate it with what the “Star Wars Story Group” thought was the greatest hits of the long series of novels which had been produced carefully with George Lucas over two decades.  When they released the comic series showing how the original Star Wars script had evolved over time and necessity they were trying to justify what they were about to do hoping to sell their work as authentic.  What they did was infinitely disappointing.  At that point in time I had been buying all the comics and books I could get and was reading them all.  But when I realized what was happening, I just stopped waiting to see if Disney would do as I feared and just mine the stories that meant something very wonderful to many of the hard-core fans, or if they’d actually continue the story into new territory—which for me was the only justifiable option.   They picked the most lazy path possible at a great insult to the fans who kept the market value of Star Wars alive for so long.

The Force Awakens of course made a lot of money—it shattered records that Hollywood may never see again.  There was tremendous pent-up multi generational desire to see a new Star Wars film. So everyone who could went to see the movie over its opening weekend.  If I didn’t know better I would have thought it was a good movie–it had all the elements present, but it was clearly missing something.  That something was the conviction that a risk taking proprietor brings to a project—a leader who has put their reputation and soul on the line to make a product which clearly marked the first two Star Wars films—was missing.  The makers of The Force Awakens were happy young people writing stories from the comfort of Lucasfilm employment and the politics of the very progressive city of San Francisco.  Like spoiled brats driving their dad’s Mercedes out for a night at the country club to socialize at a charity function thinking they were saving the world—they made Star Wars: The Force Awakens without taking any real risks and mining the material of risk takers who came before them hoping that nobody would notice.  I did, and so did many other hard-core Star Wars fans upon leaving the theater for the first time.  When the fun dies down and these fans will think about what they’ve seen, Disney will find that they now have a dreadfully divided audience because of their choices which will dramatically affect the market share potential of all the future Star Wars films.  It will hurt their book sales, their merchandise, and their box office take for all subsequent films.  What they essentially did was brought Star Wars down to the level of the latest Star Trek movies—or the Avengers films.  They might make decent money, but Disney executives are planning on insane money—and they’ll need it to survive—because other aspects of Disney’s business portfolio has been wavering in these changing economic times.

Here’s how the Hollywood Reporter announced the pending doom on Friday December 18th as The Force Awakens opened to hungry fans across the world:

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens made $57 million domestically Thursday, enough to set a record but not to satiate Wall Street’s fears over Walt Disney’s television business.

In midday trading on Friday, Disney shares were off 4 percent, twice that of the broader markets, as the conglomerate was the topic of at least two negative research notes in the past two days.

On Friday, BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield downgraded Disney to “sell” and put a $90 price target on the stock, suggesting it will fall about 17 percent in the next 52 weeks or so.

“Even The Force cannot protect ESPN,” Greenfield wrote, accusing management of “overpaying for sports rights based on overly aggressive multichannel video subscriber projections.”

Greenfield says Disney’s cable network operating income will shrink in fiscal-year 2017, causing total Disney operating income to be flat.

He also says Disney damaged its long-term prospects for cable in general “by aggressively licensing content to SVOD platforms such as Netflix to prop up near-term earnings.”

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/walt-disney-stock-tumbles-as-850171

While the numbers look impressive at first glance, because of the changing market of the other business interests, such as ESPN and how cable subscribers are dumping their subscriptions in favor of Internet service for their smart phones the media empire of Disney is too reliant on Star Wars to save it from the downsides it’s facing.  The Marvel movies are beginning to fade as the newness of them is wearing away.  By the time Captain America: Civil War hits in 2016, the franchise will be in clear decline as a box office force.  The savor was always going to be Star Wars—and now they’ve screwed that up dividing the fan’s loyalties between a re-tread and the authentic novels.

It is always dangerous to base a movie off a book, because the reader often sees things differently than a film’s director.  As long as a movie producer stays close to the source material, often things are forgiven.  But regarding Star Wars, where the franchise was kept alive with cooperation between Del Rey publishing and Lucasfilm in close contact with George Lucas approving story details the novels were like the Bible and took on a meaning that Disney obviously didn’t understand.  After all, they had been re-writing great literary classics for years, so they had no problem changing things around to suit their market appraisal for the films they wanted to produce.

By insisting that the movies were cannon and not the books which were designed to connect the original movies with fresh material ultimately created by individual authors under the guidance of Lucasfilm—the creative team behind The Force Awakens assumed incorrectly that fans would forgive them.  Some will, but not everyone, and for Disney to succeed in this venture they needed everyone.  And when the smoke clears around The Force Awakens, they won’t have everyone.  And that means financial doom on the horizon within the next five years for Disney as a company.   Bob Iger will leave the next CEO at Disney with a terrible burden and there will be no recovery from it. With other aspects of the company losing money, such as ESPN based on inflated sports contracts, it needs a new explosion in growth which Star Wars was supposed to bring.

The Force Awakens felt like a small movie after reading about gigantic events in the novels over the years.  The sheer scale of the Star Wars novels would have had enormous production costs to duplicate on film.  I’m sure Lucasfilm made the decision to do what they did on The Force Awakens based on the vast number of characters that were in the Star Wars novels—which ultimately brings up the question should a novel be cannon or is the movie a superior product?  I clearly think what is written in a novel is the cannon in every case.  Movies are dumbed-down versions of books.  I can’t think of too many books that were made into movies that were overshadowed by the film version.   Star Wars started as a fresh movie experience, but it evolved into a literary journey which became much more powerful than the original films.  Lucasfilm made the mistake by trying to reverse that trend, and make a movie by committee instead of individuals and throwing out parts of the series which were too big to project on the silver screen.  Rather than trying to do that, they watered down a product that millions had fallen in love with and banked Disney’s future on the result.

Taken by itself Star Wars within Disney will hold its own financially.  The films will do fine, the merchandise will be respectable, and the other intellectual work will likely still sell for years to come.  But because of where the company as a whole is, with ESPN failing, the Avengers movies in decline, and the lack of new musicals coming from their children films every three years-Disney has serious problems.  It would have taken all the Star Wars fans to save them—and they clearly don’t have them all.  The Force Awakens proves it.  That problem won’t show itself immediately, but will begin to show up in their repeat business numbers within a month of the release.

Kathy Kennedy should have known better. On Twitter the Star Wars people put out a tag line when The Force Awakens opened showing Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon declaring “we’re home.”   They were clearly marketing Harrison Ford’s return to the role of Han Solo to push the box office numbers over the top.  I replied to Kennedy’s tweet the reality of what I felt.  I said,” Yeah, we’re only home for the funeral.”  It was stunning to me with all their build-up that they killed off Han Solo, so to me, The Force Awakens became like going home to a funeral to visit family you hadn’t seen in a while—and likely may never see after.   We all knew that Han Solo would die in the movies at some point in time, but in the books he was still performing heroic acts 45 years after A New Hope, so if they had not gone back in time and killed off Han Solo and could have kept the heroics of his novel adventures intact in the canon, it would have been much more digestible.  Instead they not only killed Han Solo, but the best that hard-core Star Wars fans had fallen in love with–an epic story on a truly galactic scale.  What they gave us in The Force Awakens was the death of a favorite character and a highlight reel of the novels—stories we already knew—all chopped up and spit out with new names and a much smaller frame of reference.   Then to insist that an inferior product was the new canon spelled huge problems for the future of Star Wars which will compound into a much worse situation than what Disney is seeing currently with ESPN.   And I wish it wasn’t the case, because I love Disney and really wanted it to succeed.  But they made all the mistakes that they shouldn’t have—and arrogantly stood by those mistakes to the bitter end.

I don’t know if there is a way that Disney could fix the situation now.  I’m afraid it’s too late.  But maybe there is a way they can appeal to the hard-core fans before things get out of control.  They should try for the sake of everyone—mostly themselves.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Sign up for Second Call Defense here:  http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707  Use my name to get added benefits.

‘The Force Awakens’ Killed off Han Solo: Why the prequels were a lot better and how Disney blew it

Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssed off, that is the feeling I have walking out of The Force Awakens.  

Sadly, the news I was so excited about three years ago regarding the new Star Wars film is tragic—the worst of what I feared might happen, did.  Taken by itself, The Force Awakens is a very good movie, the acting is good, the special effects everything that you’d expect, the directing, the writing all very good—then there’s the music by John Williams—upper level wonder.  Unfortunately for Disney, Star Wars is much more than one movie now and Disney did exactly the wrong thing.  Like rumored, they abandoned the Expanded Universe and they killed off Han Solo in the first movie of a three-part trilogy which was my favorite character.  While on the business side I can understand why they did—Harrison Ford was 73 at the start of The Force Awakens, so it’s not a bad idea to start planting the seeds for future characters.  However, killing off Solo without having the context of the greater story developed over the last two decades is extremely problematic for the Star Wars franchise.  Here’s why.

About 15 years ago a super Star Wars fan was talking to me about the novels that came out every few months and wondered why I wasn’t reading them.  I explained that if the books didn’t come straight from the mind of George Lucas that I didn’t consider them part of the Star Wars canon.  However, the novels leaned very much on the character of Han Solo and his marriage to Princess Leia and their three children Jaina Jacen and Anakin.  So figured I’d give the books a try.  I had tried the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn and couldn’t accept it, but decided to try again with Vector Prime.  It was a great book—although Chewbacca died—and I was hooked.  I have since read most of the Expanded Universe novels which have greatly over-shadowed the original movies in sheer content and emotional story arcs.

I thought there was a whale of a story developing at the end of Apocalypse involving The Abeloth and that The Force Awakens would be about that massive galactic conflict—which would have been great.  Disney could have given the hard-core Star Wars fans what they wanted while giving a new generation of fans what they wanted.  The old characters could have faded out leaving the new very strong character of Jaina Solo to have filled the boots of her father nicely—and that would have been appropriate.  Everyone could have had what they wanted out of Star Wars.  But that’s not what Disney did with the help of J.J. Abrams, and Kathleen Kennedy.  They thought they knew better than all the minds who had been guiding the Star Wars stories through three decades of New York Times best sellers so they screwed with the story with a progressive agenda which was the worst of my fears.

If they had stayed with the Expanded Universe storyline, they could have still had a Latino lead character, a black character and a strong female lead to reach all their target demographics.  But they did more than that—they weakened Han Solo considerably and made him a self-sacrificial parent who threw himself on the sword of Kylo Ren at the end.  He and his marriage to Leia obviously went bad and the kids were damaged leading to his son (Ben) turning to evil.  Suddenly the very strong characters of the Expanded Universe were modernized into dysfunctional parents who had screwed up their children and felt guilty about it.  At the end of The Force Awakens, “General Leia” is alone with no signs of family—except the daughter Rey to find out who she truly is.  This is probably the most disappointing aspect of The Force Awakens—in the novels the son of Han, Jacen falls to the dark side over many books and his intentions were always good.  Han stayed with his wife for many years and they had a pretty good family life.  Han was always a rock solid person in those stories giving Star Wars geeks the father figure they didn’t have in real life—and it worked well in a mythological way.  The daughter Jaina was the new light of the next generation—The Sword of the Jedi.

J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan essentially took the big themes of the novels and retold the story of Jacen’s fall to the dark side moving around the names of the characters and having him confront his sister—in an epic lightsaber battle.  Knowing all that felt cheap to me.  It took Star Wars from an epic pinnacle of the highest mythological order and dumbed it down to be simply another Avengers movie.  It was fun to look at, but the content was certainly watered down from the types of bold stories that were told in the novels.  I will probably see future Star Wars movies just to see what they do and how they look—like I would a superhero type of film—the many times the Batman story has been told, or Spiderman—even Superman.  But with Star Wars, Disney had a unique opportunity to build on a massive story arc, and they screwed it up—rehashing the old by putting their own stamp on it in a way that did a disservice to the fans who helped carry the franchise for so long with their loyal support.  Clearly the emphasis by Disney and Kathleen Kennedy was to weaken the original characters from the bold embodiments of their youth into guilt driven losers in the future—which might make them relatable to a larger audience who feels the same anxieties.  Of course they had to plant the seeds of an interracial romance—which felt forced—and was distracting.  Han returned to his days as a smuggler instead of the reliable family man that he was in the books.  Luke was in hiding feeling guilt for creating Kylo Ren though his failure in teaching future Jedi—which in the books Luke had built an entirely new Jedi Order.  In the books all the lead characters were strong and determined personalities who had suffered through unimaginable sorrows, but were still people a reader could lean on and trust to do the right thing in the end.  In The Force Awakens it is obvious that the all the old characters were flawed, especially Han Solo.  This was obviously a conscious choice to make him more relatable to the modern viewing audience instead of just trusting the story the way it had evolved over the years with great success.

There has been an effort from The Alliance to Save the Star Wars Legends Expanded Universe shown at the link below to save the storyline of these movie from just this kind of misery.  But, Disney didn’t listen and they’ll pay for that.  The Force Awakens will make a lot of money, but it won’t be as much as they could have made.  They just handed the next generation a bunch of loser characters not quite sure of themselves putting an emphasis on progressive values instead of American traditional ones.  The Force Awakens is about sacrifice and the greater good whereas a theme which always ran through the original trilogy was individualism and following a personal bliss.  Han Solo as the individual always had the answers to save the Luke and Leias of the galaxy from their altruistic tendencies.  In The Force Awakens it is Han Solo that needs saving from his guilt over failing their son in ways that aren’t yet shown.  Essentially the decision to turn Han Solo from an Ayn Rand type of character into a Shakespearian tragedy was meant to erase his lineage of strength into something modern audiences could identify with.

https://www.facebook.com/AlliancetoSavetheStarWarsLegendsExpandedUniverse

http://twibbon.com/support/star-wars-legends-never-die

The result for me, and I’m sure many others, is that I completely reject these new stories by Disney.   I just came out of seeing a premier showing before it opened officially on December 18th 2015 and my sorted emotions tell me that this story in The Force Awakens is not real.  I can’t accept it as cannon.  It’s actually pretty stupid.  It represents another case of activist filmmakers trying to plant progressive Huffington Post values into a very traditional American story for the sake of unifying the world around common values.  To do that they dumbed down the American influences of individuality, and created a much more “inclusive” universe that was the obvious intent they had in making the film.  People like Arianna Huffington will love this new Star Wars.  John Wayne would have hated it.

I can deal with the death of my favorite character.  What I have a problem with is weakening their presence out of a desire to appeal to a weakened society—where movies are made by committee rather than by strong individuals.  The Force Awakens obviously understands that few people have intact families these days and that people can’t relate to the type of strength that Han Solo projected which has carried the franchise quite frankly for forty years.  They made a conscious decision to weaken Solo—hand over the Millennium Falcon to a “girl” (his daughter) and reflect the values of the present global community instead of the values of the story itself.  They cheapened Star Wars in ways that will be very costly in the years to come.  So while the movie was beautiful to look at and had many elements that are respectable on the surface, the underlining message was feeble and a tremendous disservice to the fans who have stuck with the story religiously all these years.  Star Wars had a chance to be above modern politics, but the filmmakers failed to carry it to those lofty heights.  Instead, they surrendered to the currents of modernism—and the movie shows it desperately.  The movie felt to me like a fake and something to reject—which is not what Disney wanted, I’m sure.  Forever for me, and many like me, there will always be the Expanded Universe where Han didn’t leave his wife and fail his children with some “force bending” scheme of time to save his daughter from the wrath of her brother, Han’s failed son—and the Jedi master Luke who lost his pupil to the dark side.  I’m sure there is a story of redemption in the next episodes, but by then—who cares.  Disney already screwed up the story with renamed characters and repeated themes which were already told in the novels years ago.  And in that respect, The Force Awakens fails in every way that it never intended.

The prequels were a LOT better.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Elusive Nature of Leadership: Understanding the need for an entirely different approach

I know I write a lot about the failure of our education system, and need for Donald Trump as president.  While those subjects may become laborious to the everyday reader, there are so many angles to discuss that only voluminous examination from every trajectory of consideration is appropriate to the difficulties of our day.  Sometimes I run across a video clip that really exhibits the reason, and such an example came to me while I was watching a Donald Trump interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN.  I was so astonished by some of the things Chris said that it took me several days to get my thoughts right about it.  Watch the video below.  The specific part of the interview that I found so astonishing was the part that Cuomo uttered in question form, “how do you know you’re right if so many people disagree with you. “  Boy did he say a mouthful right there.

Leadership is the most elusive element of modern culture.  Even with all our science and physiological understanding of thought processes—academics do not understand it.  Very few people understand real leadership.  I actually deal with this kind of stupidity all the time.  I understand leadership extremely well; it’s always been a very natural thing for me.  When I read books like Trump’s Art of the Deal, and Sun Tzu’s Art of War, I understand the author’s point of view instinctively as opposed to the novice student hearing some of the elements of those books for the first time.  A lot of that comes from my education background and life experiences which looked to people on the outside to be extremely reckless.  I have always known the right thing to do even when nobody else could see it, in every aspect of my life—so it’s easy for me to look at Chris Cuomo and wonder if he’s from some other planet.  I’ve heard that baffling contemplation so many times that it doesn’t surprise me.  But for the sake of dramatic writing, I’ll fester along the line of thought to make the point more interesting.  Leadership does not come from focus groups or consensus of any kind.  It comes from raw individualized leadership only—meaning other voices are pointless.  It is good to utilize other people’s opinions for the sake of “team building.”  But a “team” approach is not the same as “leadership.”  It’s just a means of getting large numbers of people to do what you want them to do.  A team approach is fine so long as that team listens to their head coach.  Without a strong leader, a “team” will be ineffective.

When I talk about things like that to people who think they are the smartest people in the room, I get hokey references to all my mysterious books as if somewhere in them was a famous recipe for leadership that they can figure out if they just put together the right mix of a “team” working toward consensus.   As I write this the new Star Wars films are getting ready to release and there is a lot of excitement about them.  There really may never be such an event on planet earth again, where the entire world is so ripe with anticipation.  While I think the movies might be pretty good, I have serious doubts that they will be as good as the movies George Lucas made when he ran Lucasfilm from a leadership position as a sole proprietor.   The new films are certainly made by “committee” and I think that will show up in what comes across in the movie theater.  The message of the old movies was individualism versus the state because that was something that George Lucas believed in during that part of his life.  The new movies are about decentralized authority and consensus building.  For kids going to the movies today, the films will be the best thing they’ll have seen, but in the long lens of history, these new movies will lack the punch of the originals because of the method for which they were made—just like any company that tries to make a product after a strong leader has either left them, or they’ve tried a more inclusive approach—a rule by committee.   That is exactly the problem the Apple Company is suffering through right now.  They still make a good product, but they lack the innovation and spirit they had when Steve Jobs was in charge.   They can hold their own for a while, but are slipping a bit each year under weak leadership.

Trump would be a good president because of what Cuomo asked him.  Trump instinctively knows what’s right to do.  A good leader can make a decision even if nobody else understands the nature of the problem yet. The reason why is because of Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality.  CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW.  Leaders are simply at the front of the metaphorical train instead of the back.  It doesn’t matter if you are talking about Jim Harbaugh leaving the San Francisco 49ers  to become coach of the Michigan Wolverines in college or George Patton, strong leadership is immediately noticed the moment its gone.   Good leadership is noticed on a restaurant drive through—good leadership keeps the food moving, bad leadership drives down the food quality and window times.  The moment that Jim Harbaugh left San Francisco for Michigan, that professional football team went into decline but the college team was on the uptake.  Good leaders never listen to the world around them except for intelligence gathering.  Good leaders always act from the inner voice that only they understand at the front of the train of thought—on the cutting edge of decision-making.  It’s not a mystery to those who naturally possess the trait.

However, our education system teaches kids like Chris Cuomo that answers to life come from collective consensus, and is a very unfortunate misunderstanding.  I won’t say that it’s a deliberate lie, just an improper understanding of where to put specific emphasis on personal value.  The schools have lied to these poor kids and taught them all the wrong things for all the wrong social reasons.  Everyone can’t be a leader, because most of the time they lack the courage to be.  It takes a lot of strength and courage to be a leader, and some people just don’t have it in them.  It can be taught to some extent, but only in small degrees.  It actually makes me sad to visit a hospital and see people having babies because most children have indications of the leadership trait available to them as infants–after all they had just survived nine months inside a womb and overcame the immense psychological trauma of child-birth.  If treated correctly, many of those children could be nurtured into the kind of mind that producers good leaders, and if America really wanted to solve some problems, it would focus on strengthening its children right out of the womb, not through some government confiscation program but by empowering the parents to promote self-reliance in infants as soon as possible, learning to walk, learning to play by themselves—not with other children—and developing a strong imagination with stimulation of many aspects of thought as soon as the neurons in their brains have connected to allow such thinking.  But what happens to most of those children is they are coddled too long next to their mothers, and their fathers take orders from society at large falling in behind some authority figure that is probably incompetent by default.  Children directly mimic everything they see from their parents so if the parents are social messes, the children will struggle with those aspects for the rest of their lives.  For many children their limits in life are pressed into them before they are even six months old, and it just saddens me every time I see it.

What’s unique about Trump is that he’s always been way in front of the cutting edge—his whole life.  He’d be a great president because he wouldn’t listen to the opinions of other people—that’s the point!  He doesn’t need consultants, he doesn’t need focus groups.  He needs information, but he doesn’t need anybody to tell him what to do with it.  It would be my hope that under a Trump presidency that he’d cause a renaissance in American leadership just because his methods would be on full display around the world and people would want to copy him.  That might bring out a few more babies per year who have the potential to be strong leaders in the future.  Trump often compares himself to George Patton, and it’s not because of the militaristic nature of both of them, it’s because they both possess similar beliefs in themselves—even when the rest of the world thinks they are crazy—they can see clearly what to do and when to do it.  To those without that skill, they are baffled as to how Trump and Patton could possible know what to do without some support from their peers.  But leadership is a lonely enterprise.  Leaders are alone in the troubles of their minds and they are alone in the successes—they are alone most of the time, even when they are with people who love them.  Being a strong leader is much about being alone—even in a crowd, because nobody understands.   American culture needs to at least embrace its leaders and if such a thing became fashionable through major changes in our education system and a populist president who would make bold front page news every day of his time in office, then maybe some of those children born under freedom might develop in them the natural inclination of leadership.  But before that can happen someone like Trump would need to be able to sell it to the masses.  Only then would the qualities of leadership become more widely acceptable—and understood.  But it will take a generation to get there.  There is nothing easy about leadership.  It is the most important element of a free republic.  Consensus building is absolutely the wrong approach.  It doesn’t work, and it never will.  It can produce moderate results, but spectacular ambitions will always reside among the few who embrace the cutting edge and by their very nature—who always see most clearly and act most decisively.  Trump is one of those rare few who do it so fluidly so this is a rare opportunity for the United States, and I’m excited about it.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Wisdom of Sheriff Wayne Ivey: Good guys with guns and Hillary Clinton’s friends–robbed at gunpoint

 “Enough is enough” when it comes to terrorism — that’s the video message Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey posted recently telling residents that they should start carrying firearms with them to protect his community and our nation against terrorism.  Now that is my idea of a good local sheriff, and cop.  In a lot of ways, Brevard County is a place I consider a second home, so its gives me a lot of pride to see the sheriff of that region speaking with the sense that should be obvious to everyone.  Get a gun, carry a gun, and protect yourself from the aggressive possibilities of terrorism in whatever form.

“I think the message is: people are thirsty for a solution to the terrorist activities, they’re thirsty for a solution to the active-shooter scenarios that have taken place, and I think they’re thirsty for leadership,” Ivey said in response to the national attention his video has gotten. “I think it was time for someone to stand up and say that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

http://mynews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2015/12/7/brevard_sheriff_video_arm_selves_against_terror.html

People against Ivey’s proposal are of course organizations like the NAACP and virtually every other liberal conglomeration.  But nobody should listen to them because they are the cause of what’s made the situation dangerous in American to begin with.  They have been pro open borders, they have been pro Islamic immigration without consideration for the potential for radicalization, and they have been notoriously anti-gun—insisting that America copy its domestic philosophy policies from socialist nations like France and other European disasters—old, crusty regions drowning with Marxism.  As I write this President Obama is considering an executive order against firearms which is incredibly arrogant, and intrusive.  One of the worst suggestions by him is that people on a no fly list not be able to buy a gun.  Well, that won’t work; a person like me could easily be put on a no fly list because the regime in power might consider me a threat just because of the things I say.  You can’t legislate evil out of existence; you have to face it down, and you can’t let an evil government prevent good people from facing that evil.   The situation is very simple, good guys need to carry a gun so that when bad guys try to act in a terrorist fashion, the right side will have the advantage to end the threat.  Then of course the gun owner should call Second Call Defense and let them handle the legal issues.

I actually worry about trying to buy a ticket on an airplane for fear of finding my name on a no fly list because to Obama, a person like me is more of a threat to his intentions than an Islamic terrorists trying to breed more like them within the borders of the United States.   So Obama’s executive order proposal  is not intended to protect America from terrorists—it’s to protect government officials from criticism over their own mismanagement—which is an abuse of power.   There’s a reason that congress, represented by the people of our nation, have refused gun restriction action.  It’s not just because of the NRA.  The NRA has so much money and power because people like me put money into it.  They didn’t get all their lobbying wealth from some oversea billionaire like what’s behind the open border issues, and marijuana legalization legislation—or Saudi Arabian activists trying to gain legislative power within the United States by pouring money into the Clinton Foundation and letting a former president and a possible future president keep the hands of justice out of their medieval society.   The NRA and its power over congress are because of millions of people like me who want to see the Second Amendment protected from people like Obama.  He has no right to sign an executive order against firearms in any way.  If he does so he’s acting in a criminal fashion, which only justifies more gun buying to protect us from an activist government hell-bent on disarming us.

In this hostile environment where terrorists want to harm us, and our government who created the situation in every fashion wants to further restrict our ability to protect ourselves, it’s wonderful to see Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey speaking reasonably as a government official.  Good guys need to be the ones carrying guns.  We don’t need to wait for some government study sponsored by grant money for the desired results against guns to be produced as the NAACP desires to tell us what’s logical.  Good guys need to be able to stop bad guys when the intention is to bring harm against innocent people.

For instance, just the other night not that far from my own home a young teenager tried to rob a couple of contractors at gunpoint.  Big mistake for that 16-year-old kid—he apparently listened to too many rap songs about violence and played too much Grand Theft Auto.  Because one of these contractors had a concealed carry permit and pulled out his gun.  The kid shot first but the contractor then discharged his firearm ending the life of the young punk which was well within the right of the contractor.  He waited for the kid to fire first apparently, which is good to do, but dangerous—then ended the threat immediately.  Police showed up, did their investigation and found that the contractor acted within the legal parameters of our society.  The contractors lived another day, the robber didn’t.  The robber’s threat against citizens of planet earth is done forever—by his own choice. If more people carried guns and used them in these kinds of situations—not just in terrorist threats, but street robberies also—we’d have a much safer country.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/cincinnati/evanston/contractor-claims-self-defense-in-deadly-evanston-shooting

Nearly at the same time as the contractor shooting in Evanston, Cincinnati attorney Stan Chesley and his wife, Judge Susan Dlott – both personal friends of the Clintons – were driving back to their Indian Hill home from a dinner in Montgomery.  Three punks followed them from the parking lot.  Once the powerful attorney and his federal judge wife were inside their home the punks kicked in the basement door of the victims’ residence, committed theft, roughed up the couple with abuse and pointed guns at (Chesley and Dlott)’s heads.  The thugs Terry Jackson, 21, Darrell Kinney, 20, and Demetrius Williams, 20 — were apprehended by Madeira police following a traffic stop the same evening—luckily.  If Chesley had been carrying a gun, he could have stopped the situation immediately.  The threat is very real; we are in a dangerous world even in nice neighborhoods.  The youth in America have been radicalized by liberal educations and entertainment.  It’s not just Muslims that are the potential threats for violence; it can be anybody—particularly if they are under thirty years of age.  Radicalized educations have destroyed the mind of young people making all of them potentially dangerous.  You can’t go around shooting them all at will, you have to wait for them to make a move against you, but you can’t assume that it won’t happen because President Obama is on the case with his executive order pin.  It is government mismanagement that has caused all these problems, and the responsibility to fix them all starts with good guys with guns.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/indian-hill/police-embattled-attorney-stan-chesley-robbed-at-gunpoint-in-indian-hill-home

All three stories discussed above happened in just one week.  There is not a single source of threatening behavior.  Watching out for radical Jihad fanatics is just a small piece of the puzzle.  We have an entire generation of young people raised to think they are victims and that society owes them something and that if they want that something—they’ll take it by force if necessary.   If three thugs can drive into Indian Hill and rough up a powerful couple on the speed dial of Hillary Clinton at gun point—in their home—it can happen anywhere. 

The only way to stop those possibilities from occurring is by putting a gun in the hands of good guys and giving them the ability to use that gun to stop bad guys.  We do live in a world full of good guys and bad guys.  We are expected to know the difference—and most people do.  Politicians are tone-deaf to evil, because in many cases they embrace evil by the nature of their jobs—so they are unqualified to legislate on our behalf.  Obama is certainly unqualified.   To protect us from them, we have the NRA.  And to protect us from legal recourse, we have Second Call Defense.  But to protect us from terrorist threats, whether it may be a common robber, or a Saudi terrorist attempt—the best defense is a good guy with a gun.  So let’s get guns in the hands of the best people we can find and let them do their work—and let’s turn our country back from the brink from which liberals have created for it—and put it back under our safe keeping as the barrels of our guns point outward to the threats which intend it harm.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Brilliance of Donald Trump: Why being a little wild is a good thing

Amazingly, Donald Trump’s recent position of monitoring and restricting the movement of Muslim’s in and out of American borders is creating quite a stir—politically.  While most in the Beltway believe Trump is a madman, I would say that Trump is behaving like the brilliant tactician that he is.  No wonder the United States is losing around the world, because the people in mainstream politics are clueless about negotiation and strategy.  Trump’s comments are brilliant for several reasons.  First he’s playing the typical high low game needed in any negotiation.  He knows by taking an extreme position, he’ll force elected officials to at least consider some measures of security in relation to the Muslim religion.  The terrorist element is obviously hiding within that religion behind peaceful people, but there is no way to root the bad guys out if you don’t force the Islamic community to separate themselves from the radicals.  In the short run, radicals are forced into hiding until things calm down which obviously makes the world safer through the Christmas Holiday.  Additionally, all the idiots who are coming out against Trump, which is everyone pretty much in the Beltway—are demonstrating why they are unqualified to be president as Americans want somebody to make decisive decisions even if they are standing alone.  To understand the extent of the issue, watch this ABC Report on Trump with clips from a recent Barbra Walters interview.

Trump knows exactly what he’s doing.  Six months from now he’ll be able to say that he was the first Republican to identify the problem, which will prove to be quite extensive in its sleeper cell network, and he will show Republican delegates that he is willing to do anything and everything to beat Hillary Clinton ahead of the convention.  That is after all what they all share in common as a concern, beating Hillary Clinton in a head to head election.  No other Republican candidate has a chance because it will take extreme positions to outscore her in a media field that is clearly in her corner.  You can’t play nice with her and win.  You have to hit her lower than she is willing to go, which is lower than most anybody can fathom.

Trump has many business interests around the world, particularly in the UAE, so he’s showing Republican voters that he is willing to go against his own interests to do what he thinks is right—which dispels one of the concerns Republicans have with Trump.  The New York billionaire has had a friendly relationship with the Clintons in the past, so Trump has to prove that he will hit Hillary hard and not go soft as a candidate.  So this Muslim debate does several things that are needed for Trump and the nation and he has orchestrated it all very brilliantly.  It puts the issues of Muslim terrorist cells hiding behind the religion on the front burner for discussion which is needed.  Complacency will only lead to many more domestic attacks—particularly through the Christmas Season.  Trump has also thrown cold water on the millions of dollars of attack ads that Jeb Bush and John Kasich have taken out against him ahead of the primaries.  The money of those other Republican presidential candidates and their donors has been completely wasted, so of course they are mad at Trump.  Then of course there is the Obama administration that is quietly terrified of a Trump nominee, as there will be unfettered criticism and bombastic dissemination of Obama and his former employee Hillary Clinton in his last year as president, establishing his legacy forever as a complete failure. Of course they think Trump is unqualified to be president, because they have set the bar so low that Trump would be unable to live under that bar.  Trump is promising to make fools of all of them and that’s the real fear of the comments about Muslims.   They don’t care about those people of religion; they care about being exposed as political losers.

The way that ABC presented that report was interesting, it was essentially no different from school kids debating who the best band is, or what is fashionable or not fashionable.  If a kid in school distinguishes themselves as a stand-out from the crowd, they get picked on endlessly until they comply with the recommendations of mass association.  Peer pressure is what public schools are all about—fitting into a crowd and merging with the collective opinion on a matter.  But real leaders are those who stand against the tide, who are the first to see a problem and offer a solution—even if nobody else understands it.  I was always one of those kids; I never fit neatly into place and constantly pushed back against the masses.  I never did what was expected of me, and now many years later, I have been proven correct time and time again.  Eventually people in the masses follow a good leader—they do come around to the correct way of thinking by necessity of their own survival.

Trump more than anything has shown himself to be a leader.  As the world turns against him he has managed to put himself on the front page of every newspaper in the world with hundreds of millions of dollars of free advertising showing himself to be willing to be a decisive leader—which is the most sought after trait that voters are looking for in the 2016 election.  There is no issue more important than that one to normal people outside of the Beltway.  The Trump comments were controversial, but there is no downside.  What he has done is made an investment that will pay off greatly by the time summer comes around in the northern hemisphere, and there will be no stopping him.

To prove themselves competent, authorities will have to bust terrorist cells during the Holiday season to prove they are doing their jobs—and they’ll do it to prove to Trump that all Muslims are not terrorists.  Because of their anger at Trump they will be forced to actually do their jobs for a change—something they wouldn’t have been motivated to do before Trump’s comments.  Likely we will all be a lot safer for the short run as Muslims themselves seek to push their radicals out of the darkness into the light of day to avoid association which will only help our Homeland Security investigations. And the Obama administration for helping these terrorists gain strength will be forced to pick sides—which they obviously don’t want to do.

All this will play in favor of Trump going into the fall of 2016 where he’ll be poised to take credit for it all—because it was his actions that provoked all the behavior change which left unchecked would have led to many more San Bernardino shootings.  Of course the political establishment doesn’t understand all these techniques of strategy, which is why they are the ones not qualified to be president.  All this that Trump is doing is outlined in his very good book on business, The Art of the Deal.  There is no secret—he spells it out for all to see.  Anybody with half a brain would know what he’s doing—and fortunately, many Americans do have a brain when they are given the right things to think about.

This is the only way to break loose the issues that are destroying our nation—the bad guys have to be rooted out and exposed in this fashion.  I know a thing or two about these strategies and have used them myself many times.  They work in both small and large situations.  But in Trump’s case, they will strike fear into his enemies when he takes the desk of the Oval Office.  He will be in a wonderful negotiation position by then, because it does pay to be a little wild.  Often it pays very well.  But to sell that wildness you have to be willing to carry out an act when called upon.  And if you have to pick something to display it, you do it with the most strategic subject possible so that if you do have to pull the trigger you accomplish another objective with the wildness.  That’s why Trump is the best.  And that’s why he SHOULD certainly be president.  You don’t win by playing patty cake.  You win with being a little crazy when it counts most.  Christmas of 2015 after a terrorist attack that the current president is avoiding to name is a good place to start.  New York will be safer because of Trump’s wildness, and so will everyone else.

 

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

 

What I Love About Christmas: Guns, Guns, and more Guns–Smith and Wesson stock is rising!

It’s a wonderful time that we live in, regardless of the challenges posed by poorly constructed philosophies and destructive politics—it is truly a wonderful life.  In spite of the terrorists that want to kill us in America because of our use of capitalism, or the domestic insurgents who want to blast the United States back into the Stone Age regarding religious and hierarchical structure—life is beautiful.  It is Christmas time, time with family is wonderful, and we have guns—lots of guns—so all is well.  I love guns, and so do many Americans.  I also love my iPhone, so it gave me great pleasure to get a stock notification while I was having a nice lunch that Smith & Wesson stock was up, way up.  Given the recent attempts by the left-leaning political class to propose stricter gun laws, the American public responded by purchasing large numbers of personal firearms.  That of course drove up the stock offering from Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger—two of my favorite firearm manufacturers, both examples of great American companies—that can emphatically declare—Made in America.  Here is the news that came over my stock app which made my lunch taste so much better.

Smith & Wesson Hits 8-Year High On Gun Control Push

BY JAMES DETAR, INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

12/07/2015 05:04 PM ET
Shares of Smith & Wesson (NASDAQ:SWHC) and Sturm Ruger (NYSE:RGR) gapped up sharply Monday amid new gun control calls by President Obama and the New York Times as well as a Supreme Court ruling.

Obama’s Oval Office address Sunday night and an unusual New York Times editorial came in the wake of the mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2 in which 14 died and 21 were wounded. Shares of firearms makers often rise after mass shootings and other violent incidents, and fall during lull periods.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider an appeal of a Chicago area law banning semiautomatic guns such as the AK-47 and Uzi, and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Two justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, said in a statement that they would have allowed consideration of the case “because noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents warrants this court’s attention as much as any of our precedents.”

Smith & Wesson shares gapped up 7.6% to 20.44 to an eight-year high in Monday afternoon trading on the stock market today.

Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/business/120715-784076-smith-wesson-sturm-ruger-rise-on-gun-control-talk.htm#ixzz3tjtPLTmp

I remember when stock prices used to be checked by reading the Wall Street Journal and the closing value from the previous day.  The information was at best 24 hours old by the time you could effectively use it to make a trading decision.  Now with the mobile devices that are so easily available, stock pricing changes are instant.  I’ve come to enjoy my iPhone because the apps are so interactive and run well on the Apple operating system.  I have my preset favorites and one of them is (NASDAQ:SWHC) but that’s really just for fun.  You aren’t going to get rich on that kind of stock; you’d have to buy it in large quantities when it’s very low and sell it off on a bounce-back.  But watching it climb to such lofty heights as it has after Obama’s speech has more value to me than just money.

Smith & Wesson are and Ruger are companies that I cheer for, because everyone knows the political pressure against them to shut down, the threats of lawsuits that they’ve had to endure from every pandering politician to ever hit the scene—the gun companies have been easy targets for many years.  So I watch the stock of gun companies to monitor their health—because that is important to me.  I want to see them succeed, because if they do, I succeed also.  It’s good to see Smith & Wesson stock climbing because that means that mainstreamers are buying guns and are wanting to own a piece of the company.

I would suggest Smith & Wesson stock for a Christmas present to a person in your life who values such things.  At the current prices, they won’t be retiring any time soon, but it is ownership into something that is distinctly, and unapologetically American.  I know I feel every time I buy one of their firearms pride in owning a piece of American craftsmanship.  I have a long history with fine machining products—and even today it’s a part of my life.  I have great respect for products made on lathes and milling machines.  So I never tire of rubbing my fingers over a fine firearm that was built to contain controlled explosions and deliver a projectile to a target radius many yards away.  It is a similar appreciation as I feel when holding a fine set of golf clubs, or shooting a basketball into a well constructed hoop.  Its science melded with human invention out of necessity—and they are things to behold with appreciation.  Machining measurements on firearms are understandably very tight, so it takes a lot of responsibility, and craftsmanship to be a firearms manufacturer.  The liability alone makes it nearly prohibitive, which has been politically motivated to sink those companies with compliance costs.  There are much more profitable ventures to be involved in, so I greatly respect companies like Smith & Wesson, who have their headquarters in a liberal part of the country and are holding their own against a tide of progressive sentimentality.  They could do other things to make a buck, but they work each day to stay in business for the few of us out there who greatly appreciate their efforts.  Those are the things I think of when I rub my fingers over the contours of a finely built gun.  They are objects of great love and care—and they go perfectly with a bold American flag flying on the Fourth of July.

Watching the stock price rise on my iPhone indicated to me that the attempts of the gun grabbers were failing.  If they were trying to use fear instigated by terrorism to drive society into their warm embrace—they have failed in their task.  Instead, what they are getting is a society that is rejecting their extended arms knowing that the cost of that embrace is a loss of freedom and personal sanctity.  What the government is doing is essentially perverted, like a teenage boy trying to sneak a kiss from an innocent girl by taking her to a scary movie so that she wants to tuck herself into his arms as an invitation to a first base advancement of sexual exploration.  Government wants America disarmed for the same reasons—and the public isn’t falling for it. Instead, they were going in the other direction and that is good for firearms manufacturers like Smith & Wesson who have been making guns for a long time—yet have done so without the glamour and glitz of the great success story that they are, because guns have been given an undeserved stigma.   Yet Smith & Wesson made them anyway.  So it’s nice to see good things happening to good people and the owners of Smith & Wesson are.  Those who aren’t owners yet desired to be, so they bought some stock, which is the best way to tell such a company—Thank You.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

http://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Paris Needs Guns, Guns and More Guns: How to deal with ISIS around the world

France needs more guns—a lot more guns. As one of the most progressive cities in the world, they continue to be a premier target for terrorists from radical Islam as a Middle East caliphate attempts to take over the world through fear. France is essentially a socialist country; it has a current socialist president. It has gun control—very strict gun control. It is an open-minded place sexually, philosophically, and especially nationally with a large immigration problem that would be considered illegal in other places around the world. And in one of their premier sporting events which was taking place at one of the attacked targets, a soccer stadium full of 70,000 people as France played Germany in a match they called a “friendly” French society just comes across to evil as a soft, easy target. ISIS terrorists had no fear of stepping into a popular night spot where innocent people were dancing the night way and opening fire from a balcony while lobbing grenades into the crowd—because they knew nobody would shoot back. In Paris, the police are often not armed—so there was nothing to stop terrorists from their ill intentions.

I feel sorry for the families of the victims who will have the mutilated bodies of their loved ones splashed on television and media images from now on as this story was so shocking that it will not die soon. It’s asking for trouble to be in a place where you could end up helpless in a fishbowl, stuck with nowhere to go if a crazed radical decides to make victims of people defenseless in a public place. In Paris a small army of terrorists caused over 150 deaths and many more injuries. As of this writing only eight of those scum bags were killed as police eventually did show up with guns to engage the threats. But after massive amounts of damage and terror were already inflicted.

Now it should be clear why guns should be more abundantly used for private use and what happens to people when a socialist state is in charge. Paris after the attacks went into a curfew mode. A city known for its liberal living was locked down like a panicked school during a fire drill interrupting everyone’s lives that may be there on business or sightseeing travel. The borders of the entire country are now sealed off as if that is going to stop terrorists from getting back to their homeland of Syria and Iraq. Of course the socialist president of France declared war against the perpetrators as ISIS gleefully claimed responsibility daring action taken in retaliation. After all, who’s going to be afraid of a country that calls its competitive events, “friendlies?” What’s France going to do to ISIS? Send them a strongly worded letter? Or tell the Americans that they will support for more air strikes along the Syria, Iraq border? France doesn’t have any resources to declare war against anybody, let alone a lunatic base of international thugs known as ISIS.

All the support, all the prayers, all the colored state houses across the world showing support for France won’t solve the problem—they are meaningless gestures caused by global mismanagement of the Middle East. There you have religious based radicals politically driven by communism who are still angry at Europe for the Sykes-Pikot agreement and they will not stop until they are all dead, because they have been raised from youth to hate everything. So there is no reform. You can’t send them a box of chocolates and expect everything to be alright. They only understand force, and until the world is ready to show that force, these types of attacks will only increase, because passivity only increases the desire to inflict harm.

Now lets look at some really stupid behavior by the same leaders who brought us the massive progressive utopia known as Paris so it can be seen that similar acts of violence are poised to unleash across the plant all designed by the insurrections in Syria. The following story isn’t just United States specific. There are Syrian refugees all over Europe fleeing ISIS, and within those cells of refugees are minorities of radicals who are willing to suicide bomb potential targets so that Allah will give them their virgins and lofty praise in the afterlife. We are dealing with a new kind of stupidity around the world, and they are dangerous.

The 10,000 Syrian refugees are first flown to the United States, according to the French news wire Agence France-Presse, with the State Department paying the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for the airfare.

Then, once the refugees arrive in the country, they could be dispersed across the 180 cities listed above, where they are to aided within the first 30 to 90 days in settling and finding employment in the area.

After approximately 90 days, refugees are no longer eligible for the State Department-funded support that they were receiving through migrant and refugee services. However, they are able to join support programs through the Department of Health and Human Services.

Additionally, it is unclear how much the screening process for the 10,000 Syrian refugees will cost American taxpayers.

The State Department spent $1.1 billion resettling people from around the world in the country last year. That’s about $16,000 per person.

After the Hayride broke the exclusive story on 10,000 Syrian refugees possibly resettling in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Metairie, it has now come to light that refugees are already coming into the New Orleans area.

Catholic Charities, which receive federal grants from U.S. Department of State/Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, have apparently taken in two Syrian refugee families already and are expecting many more.

There are approximately 180 cities in the country that are eligible to accept the 10,000 Syrian refugees. Here is the full list of those cities, which includes Baton Rouge, Matairie and Lafayette:

http://thehayride.com/2015/11/breaking-syrian-refugees-are-arriving-in-new-orleans/

The best advice is to grab your guns and be vigilant. Keep your eyes open and understand that evil is amuck. Don’t get caught praying for peace, because these killers will attack while nations morn on their knees to deities unseen and negligent toward the evil before us. If Paris had more guns on their streets in the hands of their private citizens, they wouldn’t be such a lucrative target, so for their sake, and everyone else, revisit your gun laws, and make it easier for private citizens to carry so that they will be there ready to defend the weak around them when the time comes. Because that time will come again, and likely more often than it has in the past—attacks like this one in Paris only emboldens evil. Without complete dissemination of their terrorist cells, they will plan another attack. And only guns and the willingness to use them can alter those aggressive plans of global insurrection.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Trump on Meet the Press: Beating “The Brotherhood of the Snake” and the conspiracies of doom

I write sometimes about the occult, comparative religion, and the hidden history of the human race.  There are a lot of people out there who believe a lot of strange stuff, and if you peel back the layers of just about any organization—fraternity, secret society, or even political party you will find some reference to a group of people called “The Brotherhood of the Snake.” Because of that “Brotherhood” I have no faith that any presidential candidate no matter how well-intentioned would be able to break the cycle of that “Brotherhood” which believes in various forms of human sacrifice for divine sanctity.  Any president who expects to have success in a culture essentially run by “The Brotherhood of the Snake” would need to be completely independent of it. Donald Trump appears to be and the evidence of just how independent he is can be seen in the wonderful interview done on Meet the Press conducted on Sunday August 16, 2015.  Trump is a free man built by capitalism and he loves himself in a way that the American way of life intended to construct.  He is an Ayn Rand man—a unique creation built exclusively by the philosophy of America shaped by Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Adam Smith.  That makes him a uniquely independent human being and wonderfully free person economically and spiritually.  Put Trump in the White House and things will happen on Capitol Hill.  Without Trump, the cult of sacrifice will continue while K-Street lobbyists, prostitutes, and scum bags of all shapes and sizes will continue to ruin the management of the United States.  That is why I am so excited about Donald Trump.  We are on a philosophic precipice and I want Trump and his guys in charge so that they can rip America away from “The Brotherhood of the Snake.”  Here is the Meet the Press interview”

As to “The Brotherhood of the Snake,” believe me dear reader—you have heard of it.  If you are a Catholic, you are in the “Brotherhood” through evolution and you participate in its rituals each time you take communion simulating the blood of Christ.  If you are a “greenie weenie” tree hugging hippie, you are part of the “Brotherhood” because you are willing to sacrifice aspects of the human race for the preservation of “earth.”  If you believe as labor unions do that something must be sacrificed so that all people can be equal with a “living wage,” you are part of a belief system created by the “Brotherhood” many years ago that formed such thoughts from its infancy.  Here is how “The Brotherhood of the Snake” and its history evolved over time from a site linked below.  If you have doubts about any of this CLICK HERE to allow me to substantiate these claims further and provide a correct education into a world largely hidden from us all in our busy daily lives.

The Secret Societies have been present in the history of man for a very long time. It all started thousands of years ago with the “Brotherhood of the Snake”, a secret society set up by an alien named Ea or Enki. This story is very carefully told in the Sumerian scriptures, which go back at least 6000 years. There it says man was created by draconian aliens, who came to this planet to exploit its resources – especially gold. But the work was heavy, so the alien race wanted someone else to do the hard work. Thus Ea, who was a brilliant scientist, created Homo sapiens as a hybrid between a primitive earth life-form and the alien race. 

First Homo sapiens was only meant for slave labor and couldn’t breed. Later on this was changed. Ea didn’t like, though, how his created race was treated and wanted to enlighten them by telling them who they were and where they came from. He also wanted to tell them the well hidden truth that each individual is a spirit inhabiting a body and that after body death the spirit lives on and reincarnates on Earth. 

Ea’s superiors didn’t agree to this, as they were afraid of chaos and turmoil, but Ea told them anyway. The early Homo sapiens revolted against their Masters, but were forced to retire. Ea then started this secret society, the Brotherhood of the Snake, to enlighten people in secret. But he was discovered and judged by the alien laws, which meant that Ea was deported to Earth for eternity – to die here and be reborn here in endless cycles, using fragile, short living human bodies. If this is right, he might still be here … 

In the meantime, as time passed by, the “Brotherhood of the Snake” was infiltrated by the Draconian Master aliens and the knowledge was distorted to trap man instead of enlighten him. The Egyptian Era was in fact real “space opera”, with aliens walking around among us, even taking the throne as pharaohs on mostly. By that time the Brotherhood was very infiltrated and its purpose to manipulate the masses, making them believe in false gods and masters. 

In the background through all history there are the secret societies. The original Brotherhood soon split up in cults, when certain people on top were in disagreement with each other and different powers of control developed, with them even fighting each other (which still is the case today) totally above an ignorant population.

They invented the different religions and sects and cults so man would be busy doing something else instead of looking into what the Brotherhood was doing. It was also a way to control people by not telling the truth about God and Jesus, so that people would miss the point and never be able to be set free. Religion has always been connected with guilt and punishment, which is NOT the way it is supposed to be. They put themselves in charge of the churches to entrap people and to spread conflicts between different belief systems. Most wars throughout history have been religious wars.

Out of the original Brotherhood came Freemasonry, the Rosicrucians, The Knight Templars, Ordo Templi Orientis, Knights of Malta and more. They all knew, on the highest grades, the truth about the origin of man and that we all are spiritual beings and thus immortal. They know God is the REAL and only source, but they distorted that power as we let them deceive us and used the power of God that we have inside of us for their evil purposes. This knowledge is a very well kept secret and they have done everything in their power to hide the truth from people, and one must say they succeeded quite well. People who for some reason or another have stumbled upon the road to truth has either been ridiculed, slandered or even killed. 

Now you might say that the Freemasons, for example, is a charity organization and even Christian to its belief. Yes, that’s what we’re told and that is what most members of the secret society believe. Most people involved are good people, who are ignorant of what’s going on upon the highest grades. Because up there is Satanism and worship of the dark forces. They don’t serve God, they serve Satanor Lucifer and that is the key to what is happening in the world of today. 

Adam Weishaupt (1748-1811) basically a Jew, converted to become a Catholic Priest and ended up starting a “new” secret society called the Illuminati. Actually it was not new at the time; it’s been there long before then, but during Weishaupt’s lifetime this organization was revealed publicly. It’s unclear if he was the master-mind behind it, but most researchers, including me, are more or less certain that Weishaupt was just a puppet for the Elite of the Freemasons. 

The Freemasons had recently started a new branch of Freemasonry – Freemasonry of the Scottish Rite with its 33 degrees of initiation. It’s still today one of the most powerful secret societies, including members within high politics, religious leaders, businessmen and other “useful” persons. Things point in the direction that Weishaupt was sponsored by the Rothschilds, who then were (and are) the heads of Freemasonry. 

The Illuminati had its own grades ABOVE (or rather beside) the 33 degrees of Freemasonry. Even persons who were initiated to the higher degrees of Freemasonry had no knowledge of the Illuminati grades – it was that secret. Up there Weishaupt planned the take-over of the planet, and he made up distinct targets for a One World Government and a New World Order. All this was written down in something called the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion“, with an evil purpose to put the blame on the Jews(!) if something would leak. 

And it did leak! A courier for the Illuminati was struck by lightning when he rode over a field and the Protocols were found, where the takeover was carefully written down. This was in The 1770’s.Weishaupt and his Illuminati “Brothers” had to flee and work underground, as their organization was banned. It was decided that the name Illuminati should never be used officially again, but front groupsshould be used to fulfill the purpose of world domination, with the rest of the population made into slaves. One of the front groups were the Freemasons, who had a better reputation … 

It is believed that Weishaupt was killed by his Freemason Brothers, as he was unable to keep his mouth and still continued to use the name Illuminati. There could also have been other reasons. 

The secret goal, however, survived Weishaupt and the Rothschilds were now heads of the Illuminati (and still are today, together with David Rockefeller). A good help to reach the goal came from the Freemason Cecil Rhodes, who in the 19th Century tried to build a One World Government with the British Empire on the top. This was of course sponsored by the Rothschilds and it was also Rhodes who created the Round Table, a secret society in itself, named after King Arthur’s Round Table, where the Brotherhood Elite are gathering up to this day. 

World War I and II were both attempts to take over. After the Second World War people were so tired of all this killing that they welcomed the United Nations, when it was founded. The official policy of theUN was to safeguard the peace, so nothing like WW II would ever happen again. But indeed the UN was another important front organization for the Illuminati, to unite the countries of the world into one. This led to the EU project, which anyone, with his eyes open, can see goes right into the direction of the biggest fascist state known to man, where each country gets less and less power and sovereignty. 

By galloping inflation the International Bankers (read the Illuminati) have succeeded in making us believe that the only solution is a One Currency – the EMU. When that project is safeguarded, the Central European Bank (Illuminati) has all the power over the economy in Europe and can lead us in whatever direction they want. Some politicians are just stupid and ignorant, others are aware of facts and work for and with the Illuminati. The innocent people, being deceived, are the ones who will suffer the most. This is a betrayal beyond comprehension. 

The EU then will expand into the United Nations of Africa, Asia and South America and the end phenomenon will be that all those United States will be united into one big fascist state, which will last in a thousand years, regarding to their occult belief. It’s the Golden Age – the Age of AntiChrist. 

The secret societies and the Illuminati believe in the power of symbols. The world is full of their magical and black magic symbols. The problem is, we are so used to seeing them all over the place, that we don’t even think about it. The Illuminati believe that the more symbols around, the more magical power to them. The insignia of the Illuminati and the New World Order is the “Pyramid with the All-Seeing- Eye”, which you can study on the back of the US One Dollar Bill(!)

A few years ago this symbol was also on a series of stamps coming from the Vatican(!) The All-Seeing-Eye is the Eye of Horus, which is the Eye of Lucifer, and goes back to the Egyptian era. Other common symbols are the pentagram (five-pointed star), the hexagram (six-pointed star – The Star of David), the Swastika reversed (the way Hitler used it) and the pyramid in general. 

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_brotherhoodsnake05.htm

Trump is the closest man to a successful self-made man that we have in America, and his presidency will set a new standard that counters centuries of this “Brotherhood of the Snake” mentality that currently has handcuffed our political system to bizarre religious belief from multiple denominations all centering on a premise of sacrifice. Trump is a self-made creator and that is a basic, primal reason for my emphatic support.   He handled the Meet the Press interview incredibly well as he shattered many of the questions which have been formed around a basic premise of political orthodox shaped by ritualistic belief passed down to people through quantum entanglement to adhere to “The Brotherhood of the Snake” and their nutty beliefs.  It’s time for America and its people to grow up and away from this ancient notion of sacrifice, and a Trump presidency is a first big step in that direction.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Summer Day Corn Dogs: Reflections from Annie Oakley 2015 at York Woods

For the first time in over a decade the Annie Oakley event of 2015 almost didn’t happen. Gery Deer who did a radio show with me about the annual event back in June had a brother who had been through brain surgery just a few days prior, and a sick father who was difficult to leave alone for an extended period. I had a few broken bones left from a recent motorcycle crash. The trip up to Darke County, Ohio to celebrate the birthday of Annie Oakley—America’s first real female celebrity, was plagued with voluminous predators known as police trying to write traffic tickets to pay for their wages, trains that kept stopping our journey from Southern Ohio and cancellations at the last-minute by several of the big names that usually come out. It was a rough year getting started and it took everything we had to get there and do the event. But as usual, I was happy to have gone. I made a point to not film everything as I usually do so I could just relax and enjoy the festivities, but I did manage to take some interesting 250 FPS footage of some of the variety to show why I typically use the event to restore my ambition for the American philosophy of freedom. The Western Arts of American specificity are unique to the world, and below are four examples of the day’s events to illustrate how wonderful, and dangerous they can be in slow motion.

Even with the cancellations a good number of people still came up, most notably Lash Luke from Alabama—he’s the one doing the bullwhip volleys around the little girl. David Crain was back, as well as several other long timers, so the competitions we usually do were fun and a fan favorite. I did my usual thing, and we all had a lot of fun. One thing that I thought was interesting is that it was the first time in all these years of doing these events that I won competitions with both of my treasured Terry Jacka bullwhips, one that is 10’ long and the other that is 6’. I have won with the shorter bullwhip lots of times, but never the two together. Even more ironic was that I won a contest for the first time with a snap whip holster that my wife had bought me way back in 2003.

The reason for the long whip win with the old holster was that Gery just for fun introduced last year a new contest called the Indiana Jones fast draw which simulated the opening of the famous movie, Raiders of the Lost Art. Being whip guys, we of course all love that classic movie so were keen to pay tribute to it with a contest that fans seemed to love. The way Gery designed it was really hard, you must have a coiled bullwhip of over 8’ in a holster with your back to the target, just like Indiana Jones did at the opening of Raiders. The event is run against another bullwhip artist just like in the regular fast draw competition so you have to race against another competitor. It’s tough to un-snap the holster, uncoil the bullwhip, find your target after turning around to spot it, then hitting it with a precise cut. Last year when we tried this for the first time, we all stumbled through it. But this year, we were all quite a bit better. I had to use my 10’ whip because it was the best one I had at that length. I have two 8’ whips, but they are not as accurate as my Jacka so I took the 10’ whip considering the extra time it would add to gain the accuracy. Indiana Jones was using a 10’ whip anyway, so it worked out for me. It was fun and gave us all a series of laughs we all needed after several hard weeks.

I spent some extra time this year watching the Single Action Shooting guys conduct their competition. I’m planning to add that new skill to my present activities in the upcoming years as part of my promotional efforts to preserve the Second Amendment. There is so much talent present at the Annie Oakley event that I consider it a real treasure to be among them. Not just in the portion that Gery Deer puts on, which takes considerable effort, but in the Ohio Fast Draw Association and the Cowboy Mounted Shooters, which was the first clip on the above video. I purposely went to relax a bit more this time than in years past, but couldn’t resist capturing some unique images with some high-speed tricks. Once I watched the mounted shooters a bit doing their thing against a corn field ready for harvest I fell in love with the images and the photographer in me demanded to gather up some footage. The move to York Woods as I said last year allowed for an expansion of their talent pool all gathered in one place. At the fairgrounds in previous years there were a lot more restrictions which prevented the creative shooting events that were so open to the public now. The mounted shooters were just a very short walk from the area where Gery was set up to conduct his western showcase. The single action shooting guys were just a bit of a walk between both events, so visitors had a lot to look at for free. It was quite an event to say the least.

David Crain the whip maker from Middletown, Ohio offered up most of the prize money for the whip competitions, as he has now for several years. He gives a gift certificate of $50 to his shop for each winner which is a significant improvement over the $5 to $7 dollar trophies we used to give out. Having a little gravitas to the competitions brings out the best in people because there is something worth fighting for. So after the competitions David came to find me to find out how to settle up with some of the certificates I had pending and added to after the day’s events.   It was his idea, and we couldn’t get it done before this year’s event, but we certainly will before next year, to get my firewhips back into working shape. I had destroyed through heavy use my firewhips from year’s past, so I have been in need of replacements, but wanted something more robust. David and I talked for a bit last year about just such a project. The declaration by him was that we’d get it done before next year’s show. He has a number of very nice whips but for the winnings that he issued, there really isn’t a better way to spend the money than on firewhips—especially since the new location at York Woods is a lot more conducive to fire, explosions and live gun fire. Next year’s show should be a new step up from all our vast experience.

We ate at the Fairlawn again, and shared stories in the back of the room like we usually do after a hot day of sweaty efforts spent.   My wife and I had a delightful Bud Light beer at the bar as we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. After all the heat of the day it tasted wonderfully. Just a few hours before as I watched Gery’s bullwhip show as a spectator I had a couple of corn dogs as I sat in the back of the crowd and just enjoyed the festivities for a while—those corn dogs might have been the best tasting corn dogs that I’ve had in decades. They were absolutely delicious. I don’t know if it was because I was really hungry or if they sprinkled them with gold, but they were delicious. Just a few days prior I had a hundred-dollar steak at a premier establishment—which was good. But the corn dogs at Annie Oakely far exceeded that otherwise fine dining. There just isn’t anything better than cowboy hats, bullwhips, six guns and the prance of horses in front of a corn field filled with product ready for the picking. This particular year did more than just inspire me to another year of American patriotism. It unlocked several new doors which dared me to go in—which I think I will do—gladly. I’ve never been so glad to just barely make something with all the opposition involved in a very busy life. But more than that, I’m glad Gery was able to pull it together to perform effortlessly in spite of the grim realities that book ended the event with an ominous cloud. For just a little bit the corn dogs tasted better and the sun sets were just a bit more spectacular, all because a bunch of us clawed our way to Annie Oakley’s birthplace once again to celebrate Americana in all its wonderful glory.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Karen Mantia’s Failing Grades: Lakota’s declining report card from Cinci Magazine

After a few articles about Lakota and the Old Union School giveaway to Patti Alderson there were some who suggested that I was Lakota bashing again. The suggestion was that somehow the criticism was unwarranted and that at some point the “teabillies” who have lived in the Lakota district for generations should just be willing to cave into the neurotic whims of the new money that has recently moved into Lakota and expect progressive oriented government services and education practices to permeate. So the implied insult deserves a bit of analyses that I had actually be holding back on—a bit of fact-finding that isn’t all that hard to discover—yet few media outlets around Cincinnati have reported it—especially the Pulse Journal who have been eating out of Superintendent Mantia’s hand over the last couple of years to ill effect. The information of importance is the gradual slide in performance that Lakota is currently on in spite of a recent levy passage in 2013. Since Karen Mantia came to Lakota and the school board acquired Julie Shaffer Lakota has been slipping in the Cincy Magazine “Rating the Burbs” yearly report card dropping all the way down to #21 in the city after starting at #14 in 2012.imageimageimageimage

Now let’s consider the facts–in 2012 I was on WLW radio nearly every week exposing Lakota’s issues and spent quite a lot of time doing television and public speeches about the wasteful spending at Lakota. Karen Mantia was hired for an extraordinary quarter million dollar a year sum with all benefits included and immediately went to work at attacking parts of the community resistant to the management methods proposed by No Lakota Levy. It was within that environment that Lakota maintained a ranking of #14 within the city which many complained about and blamed on the bad press. After a plea for mercy from Lakota to me directly asking for a year-long ceasefire so they could repair their image I backed off and left Lakota alone for the most part. When they attempted another levy in 2013 No Lakota Levy got back together to challenge it. Safety after a couple of national school shootings was the issue behind the levy and the tax finally passed with just 1% of the vote after Sheriff Jones threw his support behind Lakota. After the passage Lakota immediately gave their employees the raises they promised and reinstated some of the programs that had been cut, but not all of them. The first priority was in paying the employees—the children were definitely of a secondary importance. For instance, it was just a month from this writing that Lakota teachers dressed in black to protest the school board over merit pay. So all has not been well, and it’s been getting worse without the marketing efforts of yours truly.imageimageimageimage

No Lakota Levy went about their business in different sectors of society and things have been mostly quite for the school board on the front of tax resistance. Well before Lakota asked for a cease-fire I declared that the situation was unworkable and needed to be dissolved. So any thoughts of being on the school board and fixing the situation from a management point of view I abandoned in February of 2012. It was obvious that Karen Mantia and several school board members were incompetent to deal with the teacher’s union and there was no way to fix the situation. It was at that time that I advocated breaking up public education in favor of new options so my personal strategy changed. But prior to that I had a pretty good relationship with Lynda O’Conner, and Ron Spurlock and we were really close to rational management of the Lakota district. It was at that time when Lakota was #14 in the city out of 35 area schools. For affluent Lakota, that wasn’t acceptable, so everyone agreed—including me—to give peace a chance. This is what Lakota did with that peace.

As shown on these charts starting with the summer of 2012 up to the present Lakota has gradually declined each year that Mantia has been superintendent even while maintaining some of the highest salaries for teachers within the entire city. Several Kentucky schools are higher such as Walton-Verona which only has an average salary of $49,774 and Fort Thomas at $57,399—which is a stone throw away from downtown Cincinnati. Lakota is outrageously high, and there is no plan to reduce those high wages. Under Mantia she lobbied hard to obtain a levy by dividing the community just so she could hand out raises to teachers in the spring of 2014. The levy was passed in the fall of 2013 so how did those raises improve Lakota schools? Not a bit—it only made the situation worse. Here are the facts.

In 2013 with the truce in full effect until the fourth quarter Lakota actually went up to #13 on the ranking. But immediately after the levy passage they slide to #17 the following year. I wrote a few articles and Mantia kept Jeffery Stec employed at $40K per year with the Community Conversation promotional campaign. But mostly things were quiet in Lakota. The local papers were eating out of the superintendent’s hand once again, the school board had peace as they practiced taking turns at being the president, and things were looking very non confrontational and promising—if you believe that money in public education equals success. But of course it doesn’t. Over the next two years Lakota slid in their rating to the 2015 number of #21, which is an obvious sign that the management of the district has been focused on all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons—and at the current rate will fall off the chart within a few years.

My old friend Kelly Kohls who was president of the Springboro school board operated her district at a $7,175 per pupil average and managed a #13 rating in nearly the same demographic numbers as it is just north of the Lakota district. Their average salary there is just $52,596 which seems reasonable. 70% of their students have Master’s degrees where it’s 78.6% at Lakota—which is statistically similar. Yet they have managed to drive their average cost down while maintaining a higher ranking. Isn’t that interesting?

It becomes quite clear while looking at these stats that throwing more money at Lakota, and leaving them alone like they begged—did not produce better results—like they promised. Now, to me that means termination of the people who caused the problem—Lakota had more success under Ron Spurlock than under the much more expensive radical Karen Mantia—and Lakota obviously made a management mistake by letting Ron drift off into the sunset and promoting Mantia—because she did nearly the same type of thing at Pickerington where she was a previous superintendent before coming to Lakota.

Mantia has focused more on things like building community consensus with socialites like Patti Alderson and their Old Union School giveaway than in actually managing the district—which is evident in her track record. It might be understood that she had a few bad years, but the trend at Lakota shows a slide downhill that is increasing immediately in the wake of a levy passage. She and her employees have mismanaged the district. It could easily be argued that Lakota was better off listening to those of us who know a thing or two about these issues, than in painting themselves into a corner for which there is no escape—like they have.

The Cincy Magazine “Rating the Burbs” report card is hardly a “gotcha” type of publication. They cheer for public schools to have success. They want Lakota to be successful, so if they wanted to be harder on the affluent public school, they could be. Even with all of that flexibility, Lakota still failed when left to their own devices. They failed under the leadership of Karen Mantia and have proven that they are overpaying their employees without expecting performance results. And that’s not the end of it. Currently the Lakota employees are still dressing in black and protesting merit pay going into the upcoming year, and they aren’t smart enough to see where they stand on the food chain—or their rankings within the city. Poor performers typically don’t get paid premium money—like Mantia has for doing a bad job. But the employees see that Mantia gets away with it, so they expect the same—and that is why Lakota continues to slide in performance reports related directly to their competition with other area schools.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.