Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 307

April 12, 2017

The Terrible Customer Service of Airlines in America: United’s horrible public relations nightmare is just the tip of an incberg

We’ve all heard by now about the Poker playing doctor who was dragged off a United Airlines flight in Chicago because the airline company had overbooked the flight. The policy is ridiculous, the mistakes made by everyone numerous, and the degrading condition of airline travel in the United States made embarrassingly clear. For what we pay for an airline ticket, the airlines should be a lot more appreciative. Instead, they have come to treat the experience—especially in the economy class—as a miserable endeavor. And it was on full display for everyone to see.

Here’s the main problem, that doctor should never have even been flying from Chicago to Louisville—it would have been quicker to drive the distance. The only time I’d fly such a short flight would be a connecting flight after a much longer journey—which often occurs when traveling overseas. When doing such a thing most flights arrive domestically in Charlotte, Chicago, or Detroit then you have to catch a transfer flight to your home destination. But for just flying from one city to another within the United States such as from Chicago to Louisville—a car is much faster by the time you waste all your time with the TSA and the booking process. Airlines have lost their way and become entirely too callous to the service of their passengers. Flying now is like riding on a public bus—and that is just a miserable state of affairs for something that should be a luxury experience. So if I were that doctor who was singled out to lose his seat on an overbooked flight which the airlines have a right to do unfortunately—I would have taken the money and rented a car—and just drove down to Louisville. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be stuck in Chicago one more night waiting for another flight the next day. That is just a ridiculous waste of time. It’s only a four to five-hour drive from Chicago to Louisville taking your time—so the people on that flight had options that were much better than the violence that eventually occurred.

And that’s what I would suggest that people do—just don’t fly unless you have to. When I need to travel overseas, there isn’t much choice but recently on a trip back from Europe I noticed that the British Airways flight crew was top-notch while the American Airlines crew just sucked. They had bad attitudes and were miserable to deal with—and that comes from their labor unions and essentially the lack of competition that the airlines have enjoyed for half a century. Well, those days are coming to an end, other transportation modes will be competing with the airlines soon and that will change things significantly—such as the upcoming Hyperloop. But even while in Europe I watched the flight attendants union for British Airways protesting at Heathrow for better wages and benefits which looked terrible. All the employees in the commercial air professions have a lot to relearn about customer service—because presently it is just terrible and that is the first problem that United had with their policy which failed so spectacularly in Chicago.

The other major issue is the authority that the TSA and the airlines now have over individual sanctity—which is a direct cause of over-reaction to terrorism. The United States response to terrorism after 9/11 was just wrong to become a bunch of scardy cats afraid of their own shadows. What should have been done then is what Trump is doing now—single out the terrorist activities and throw aggression at them making them think twice about attacking us again. Airline travel should be as easy as the air shuttle is at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati. The air shuttle there flies people to New York, Chicago, and Charlotte at just a little bit over what a commercial flight costs—but the hassle is much less. They are very respectful of your time and person at Lunken and that makes it a much more desirable option. They still work for people’s business there and don’t take it for granted that you have to do what they say.

On another flight, recently from overseas a flight attendant who thought she had way too much power was harassing a young couple who were trying to keep their baby quiet with videos on their smart phone. It was working and the noise level was next to nothing. But that didn’t stop the woman from telling the young parents that they needed to put head phones on the baby because open sounds were not allowed on the plane. Their response was that what they were doing was quieter than a screaming baby. The stewardess very nearly pressed the issue—which under the airline rules, she had the authority to do. Luckily, she let the situation slide, but not before tempting the desire to throw her weight around—which was considerable as she was an obviously union protected monstrosity who could barely fit down the aisle of the plane. Not a good image for the airline to begin with. Obviously, the tendency toward customer service was missing—customers these days are treated as a nuisance when they fly. They are practically raped before getting on the plane and once there you are at the mercy of questionable pilots and power-hungry stewardesses who are well into their 40s and miserable because they feel guilty leaving their families behind to fly around the world for a living. I mean really, if I want my mom to serve me drinks I can go to her house—part of the flying experience should be to be pampered a bit and to get where you want to go with a bit of adventure and zeal to it. Not misery and some menopausal deformity with hairs coming out of their noses pouring you a Coke on a bumpy plane. It’s a lot more palatable to have an attractive female in her mid-twenties tell you to fasten your seatbelt than some angry relic from the baby boomer generation. I’m just being honest. For what we pay, airlines are not giving us customer service and the issue is not looks—it’s just respect for the whole experience. Ugly people as employees are just the icing on the cake—airlines don’t even go that far as to care about such things. They are too busy overbooking flights and ripping people off airplanes to cover their management inefficiencies while the TSA is pulling down the paints of little boys and checking them for bombs they know aren’t there. But the little pedophile in them hope to find something—likely unrelated.

I hate flying these days unless it’s in first class. Even then, the last time I flew overseas on a United flight in the nice seats they gave me a gay guy as an attendant. My ticket cost as much as a car and that was all they could give me? I mean it’s not about sex, it’s about taste—it is much nicer to have an attractive woman passing you drinks on a psychological level and working around you while you are trying to sleep than the hairy arm of some guy who acts like he wants to molest you. Even for women, a flight to Japan or to a destination in Europe that isn’t encumbered with a PC culture of old people is more pleasant with a 25-year-old women full of wonderful estrogen handing you food—purely from a sanitation point of view because they at least care about their appearance so you can deduce that they at least washed their hands. And if airlines can’t at least give you decent looking people to serve you, then they should just leave you alone. But flying is extremely intrusive and personally violating so with the uncomfortable burdens of jet lag and time zone adjustments—these added problems are just not worth the experience. So whenever possible, I find some other way to travel these days—and that’s the best way to correct the behavior. Take money out of their pockets and they’ll have to adjust.

For passengers of that United flight where the guy was drug off screaming like a trapped raccoon, they all should have been taking a car to Louisville—because the distance just doesn’t justify the extreme hardship of flying. By the time most of those passengers arrived at the airport, checked their baggage, went through security, found their gate terminal in that large airport—they could almost have driven to Louisville from Chicago. Then there is the time it takes to taxi out and take off and actually fly to Northern Kentucky along the Ohio River, which is very fast—but still part of the process. But that’s not all, once you land, find your bags, get a car—you could have long been at your hotel if you had just driven the distance. And if I were you dear reader, that’s what I’d start doing. Don’t give those slugs at United your money for a terrible experience. Don’t reward terrible behavior. If they can’t give you something special for your time and money—then don’t give them the money. It’s that simple, and if everyone did that United Airlines and the rest of them would be forced to become more customer friendly. And from my vantage point—that is long overdue.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Published on April 12, 2017 17:00

April 11, 2017

Syrians Thank President Trump: Little birds, cockroaches and knives

Obviously now, in the days after the Syrian air bombing by the Trump administration, does everyone understand what the real game plan of the political left has been—which was actually articulated within the secret Skull and Bones Society for which both Bush presidents were a part of. War for many decades now has not been used as an objective by globalists to win territory or even gain cultural expansion—it has been used to displace people and force them like cattle into a slaughter-house of the global orthodoxy’s choosing. The way that Trump conducted the bombing exposed the progressive trend to use displaced people from destabilized regions to change the cultures of their destinations—such as the United States where it would be assumed that those people would become Democrats holding their hand out to the government to care for under our welfare system. When Syrians came out in favor of Trump’s actions against Assad in Syria—the liberal press and politicians like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren had very little to say in defense other than to utter the playbook of their open border campaign contributors.

Syrians if given a choice don’t want to flee into the United States—they want to stay in their homeland which completely dismantles the leftist open border position. Now more people than the typical reader here can see that all along the wars in these third world locations from the Middle East down into Africa—South America and over into Indo-China—India and Indonesia were created to force tribes of people into other zones of population to drive the open border mentality and manipulate the gene pool toward nefarious leftist Utopian dreams of a one world culture all mixed together in a stew they control to serve to unknown dinner guests.

Trump’s bombing campaign took away everyone’s excuses which was the genius of it—from just about every side of the argument. But most effective of all were the thanks that came from the Syrian people toward America for aiding their existence. I have spoken a lot lately about this Trump move and the strategic importance of it—but additionally I have gone so far to examine the nature of being that nosy neighbor who helps defeat evil when it’s obvious that they can’t help themselves. The “law” isn’t very good at defining such things—but let me illustrate it this way. When I see some little bug stuck in a situation I stop and help it out of my pool, or free it from being stuck between the glass of a house window if I can. Life is life and I try to do what I can to help the little things live just a few hours longer if possible. Just over the weekend, I was mowing my grass and a little bird had got its feet wrapped around some string somewhere and had managed to get all that wrapped up into a little tree where the thing was beating itself into oblivion in a panic to get away. It didn’t help that the bird was stuck low to the ground and was within my eye line, so the mower was terrifying the bird. It was shitting itself dry just scared nearly to death.

Now……………I had several decisions to make. I could just leave the bird and let some cat or coyote come along and eat the creature. After all, life lives off life and the coyote and cat need to eat too. However, as a human being I have a mind that allows me to think beyond animal necessities and as a result I am the top of the food chain. So it is truly in my power to decide the fate of the little bird. Under that consideration I took out my knife and cut the string wrapped around the bird about two feet back from its foot and freed it so that it could at least limp away and chew away the rest of the string back in the safety of its nest—if it’s leg wasn’t broken. And that appears to be what happened when the bird fell to the ground disoriented and with a new lease on life. Once it realized that escape was a possibility the bird took off for some hidden away security that only birds know about. I went back to mowing my grass.

The Rand Paul philosophy would have left the bird and not intervened. I run into the same problem with spider webs. If I see some bug not yet completely stuck, I help it out. But, the spider did go to a lot of trouble to spin a web so that things would fly into it—so the spider could eat. If you let the bugs fly free, you are denying the spider needed food so something is always bad for something else. And if spiders didn’t eat so many insects the world would be overcome with them. So the non-interventionalist stays out of it things and for good reason. But I’m also a free market guy and I think that by helping littler birds and bugs out from time to time that I improve the hunters who must drive themselves just a bit further to eat. Sure they might be pissed off at me for taking away their easy meal, but in the end they’ll make themselves better for it—or they’ll die trying. However, liberals are the types of people along with their progressive counterparts in all global political parties who deliberately set traps for birds so that they can evoke in my empathy action that they caused. For instance, they might put that decision gate in front of me to drive an answer from my actions that are favorable to them—such as getting the bird stuck to the tree with some string and when I drive by doing nothing they might photograph it and use the experience to move me in some position of guilt. Or when I stop to help the bird they might hope that I accidentally kill it so that they can call me a murderer even though they were the ones responsible for the bird’s situation—hypothetically speaking of course. But the political left probably isn’t prepared for me to be carrying a nice, big, sharp knife that easily cut away the bird so that I could resume my grass mowing and listening to the Reds baseball game on the radio over my headphones. What Trump did was pull out a knife in the form of missiles to help out the “bird” (Syria) and free it from what was trapping it.

Whatever fox or cat that might have been counting on that easy meal had to work harder that day. I decided that—and I stand by my decision as head of the food chain. I can be ruthless to the fox and compassionate toward the bird if I want to—and the same goes for spiders. And that is the role of America in the world—as a capitalist country it is our decision to be compassionate or ruthless depending on the point of view of who we are dealing with. And when it comes to children—100% of the time, we must help them when they are caught—because they don’t deserve to be someone’s easy meal. More than anything when we do such things we can see who the real villains are by those angry that the sweet little birds of our lives fly free. Likely that sweet little bird will give me many nice songs this summer and will bring joy to the world in many ways that a cat or a fox doesn’t. So I’ll take the side of the bird.

But I must say that a few hours later I saw a cockroach in my house sitting on the ceiling. I have a rule for cockroaches—because they are dirty characters that multiply rapidly and once they get out of control, you could end up with a massive population of them where you sleep. So I caught the thing and flushed it down the toilet. I didn’t smash it quickly to put it out of its misery because I wanted it to scream as it drowned in ways that only cockroaches can hear because I want all his friends to learn an important lesson. (They can live underwater for quite a while) I did not act out of compassion with the cockroach because of its nasty nature that is not compatible with my existence and as head of the food chain—it’s my right to decide if it lives or dies. So, I killed it. And most Democrats that I know—they are just like cockroaches and the same fate is the only one for them (metaphorically). You do it without thinking about it because the role they play in our society is a negative one—and little birds deserve to live a good life not caught in the strings of traps placed by global elites for an objective no honest person wants.

That’s why what Trump did was a good, moral thing. And it’s nice to see the world realizing what a blessing it is to be cut loose from those progressive traps out there which is all that Assad really is. Nobody expected Trump to pull out the knife and free them—which is why he is the master of manipulation for the good of the human race—and that is a very good thing for all life—even the cockroaches.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Published on April 11, 2017 17:00

April 10, 2017

The Morality of Confronting Evil: Donald Trump’s Indiana Jones moment

I’ve listened to the critics of Donald Trump’s Syrian airstrike for several days now and it’s time to put some clarity to the matter. While I’m an America first kind of guy, the solution to many of the world’s problems is not to live and let live the failed cultures of the globe, but to impose on them our values for the sake of our own preservation. Many would say “who are we to do such a thing when those places are sovereign countries?” But here’s the reality, when people want so badly to come to America to the point where it might threaten our own sovereignty, then we have an obligation to confront evil around the world so that it’s effects don’t spill over our borders into our country. Put another way, when you are the best and everyone wants what you have—you must expand your territory not only for your own preservation, but for the assistance of those who would love to join the American team only from their own homelands.

I have many times gotten myself into a lot of trouble “getting involved” in other people’s business for the sake of confronting evil. When I know something bad is going on around my house, like drug sales, abused women, neglected children—or just scum bags living as parasites against others—I do get involved. I’m not going to say what I do obviously—because that would be stupid to put down in writing. But in short—bad guys don’t do well near my home. If I see some dude beating the crap out of a woman—I don’t care how interventionist it might be to stop him—I do it and have done that for as long as I’ve been alive. It’s a morality situation that does not fit well under the written laws of our societies. The need to do the right thing does not fit well under the umbrella of the law because such a thing requires context and context can vary depending on what culture we are talking about. What’s good for one culture may not be so for another.

Yet, there is a morality to the human race that is well-known at our most biological instincts which is perceived rather than learned under institutions of law. When I saw what Donald Trump had done in Syria I thought of a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where a little child was being whipped. Jones sees what is going on and even though he could have served himself well by minding his own business and leaving with his treasure he instead threw a rock at the villain not thinking of what might happen next. This is an instinctive element to heroism which we all have and the Indian Jones movie articulated it well at a primal level. Obviously Donald Trump was having his Indiana Jones moment and he was doing what was obviously right without thinking about what the world might say about it. Kids were harmed by the Syrian government. Trump had a rock to throw to stop it—so he did it. I would have done the same thing.

When you walk down the street and you see a couple being robbed, do you just keep walking to mind your business? Of course not, you step in and beat the shit out of whoever is doing the robbing and you save the people from harm. That’s what human beings should do for each other. That doesn’t mean you become a busy body always poking into other people’s business, but when you are confronted with evil as it is defined within our biological essence—you must fight it wherever it appears. If I’m in a position to help someone I do it 100% of the time. If you live under a code of valor—which everyone should—you can’t just turn your back to evil just because our laws don’t have a good way to define the context of how evil moves from culture to culture under the umbrella of sovereignty. If America is generally accepted as the most moral country on earth—not defined by religion, but by individual values—then we have an obligation to spread that influence to those not so lucky to live in North America—because honestly we can’t support the whole world. But we can teach the world to support itself. That means that tyrannically charged regimes that stand in the way of that freedom will have to be deposed so that good people can live freely.

So how do we go about determining who is good and who is bad? Well, it’s really not that complicated. In Assad’s case, under no circumstances should chemical weapons be dropped onto innocent children. The kids didn’t do anything to deserve such a thing and there is no way to justify it. I often get accused of being judgmental regarding other people’s families who obviously don’t put as much into life as I do—and I really don’t care if it pisses them off. If adults are openly ruining the lives of their children by putting stupidity into their heads, then I make it known my disdain and if those kids want my help—I help them. I’ve gotten into a lot of trouble over that kind of thing but I never regret helping. It is my moral duty to help those who cannot help themselves if through my actions I can improve their “individual” state. Ultimately, I want people to be able to thrive as individuals no matter where they come from, so I always help if the situation arises—even when it’s not convenient.

In Syria, if people are so desperate to leave because Assad is such a terror, then his problem becomes Europe’s problem and America’s problem because refugees will flood our borders trying to get away. If you turn them away as we must because we can’t risk terrorists hiding in their midst’s then you must stop the evil they are trying to run from. If you see a robbery, you have an obligation to stop it. If you see a 14-year-old girl prostituting herself out on K-Street—you have an obligation to hunt down her pimp and end the threat to her. If you know a drug dealer is ruining the minds of kids down the road from your house—you have an obligation to stop the behavior—by whatever means—preferably legally. And if a country is killing its people for some collective cause—America is the only place on earth capable of making a moral judgment on the matter—and it must step in and act.

The Syrian situation was clear. There was no reason children should have been attacked with nerve gas. Trump did what I expect him to do—he attacked the evil that perpetrated the villainous behavior. Yes, Rand Paul is right; congress must give permission for war—“legally.” But sometimes when you see evil being conducted and you have access to a rock and can stop it—even temporarily—you do it. Because it’s the right thing to do. Doing what’s right isn’t always “legal.” But it is always right. And helping kids have a potential for a good life is always right. In those cases you have to live and let die because there is good and evil in the world, and you must stand for what’s good. There is no middle way in such matters.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Published on April 10, 2017 17:00

April 9, 2017

The End of Hollywood: Why the movie industry is dying

When I say that Hollywood is done my point of reference is from a business perspective and as a person who spent twenty years writing and pitching screenplays, attending film festivals, and sometimes working as a stunt coach. Films were something I was very interested in—and still am, but the business of Hollywood motion pictures was something I used to spend a lot of time thinking about so I know it quite well. Well enough to say that the time has finally come—Hollywood’s studio system movies are coming to an end and its right on time to what I said would happen over five years ago. Hollywood’s current filmmakers do not represent most of America and like the national media companies, are much more interested in being a liberal propaganda machine. Now that the costs of making a movie have intersected the declining box office receipts—such as in the case of Ghost in the Shell—the latest embarrassment with Scarlett Johansson—it’s just a matter of time now before the entire industry folds.

I suspect that Disney will always do something with film, as will Warner Bros. and a few other companies, but they will have to drastically change their habits. After I watched the Blue Rey interviews for Rogue One—which I couldn’t wait to watch, it became very obvious—the filmmakers who are in the story group now replacing George Lucas have no idea why Star Wars movies work. They only know to follow the basic formula that he created and that means they can get some semblance of a Star Wars movie—which is better than nothing, but not the whole experience. I thought Rogue One was a fabulous movie, but it was missing the pop of a George Lucas production. The San Francisco hippies who now work at Lucasfilm cited during the Rogue One interviews the fact that George Lucas had originally written that the “Force” was called “The Force of Others,” meaning mass collectivism and that kind of 60s communist philosophy. Under tremendous pressure from Twentieth Century Fox Lucas had to whittle down his script and movie down to the bare necessities so he ended up following more of a Walt Disney approach to the themes of the movie which led to a great story rooted in Joseph Campbell myth interpretation.

But the “hero’s journey” is not a collective one. Red State Americans do not think in collective terms and they cannot be made to. We aren’t all better “together” and teams are not the supreme law of the land. When North Carolina recently won the NCAA championship game over Gonzaga it wasn’t a “team effort” but actually the five to six guys who spent most of the time shooting the ball and the few individuals who shot clutch shots at just the right moment. All the bench warmers sitting on the sidelines didn’t contribute equally—yet as members of the collective team they all celebrated as a single unit. The cinematic story in telling such a movie would have been in the individuals—not the collective whole otherwise the mythic theme gets lost in the circumstances. Luckily for the Rogue One people they killed everyone at the end so that washed out the ineffectiveness of the lack of individual performances. By that I mean the mass collective sacrifice that all the members of Rogue One committed to save the Rebellion. If the Star Wars story group continue to make those Lucasfilm projects with the progressive values of their San Francisco culture—they’ll see their Star Wars product losing its mythic effectiveness. It’s still a good product, but it’s certainly less effective as a storytelling device than it was under George Lucas’ care. Just as the current collective decision makers at the Disney Company don’t understand what made Walt Disney work—they copy the formula and sometimes they get lucky.

Recently while I was in England for an extended period of time I noticed that there were a lot of westerns on television. England was playing a lot of our old 50s era westerns because their society was fascinated by the individualism on display in American cinema. They had committed themselves already to socialism for most of the 20th century and were looking for ways out of that mess—and American westerns were doing the trick. They weren’t making much that was originally good as far as cinema in England, so they played old American westerns—and that seems to be a theme around the world. And the best westerns are not about mass sacrifice for the greater good, but in individuals standing up against the masses in the name of suppressing collective evil—such as a band of cattle rustlers taking over a town and one gunman standing alone to face them down—or some bounty hunter like Clint Eastwood getting individually wealthy by killing all the bad guys and riding off into the sunset. The best movies find some way to tell an individualized story about love, wealth, or power. But movies lose their luster when they become instruments of statism.

Let me put it like this, when Wolfram Von Eschenbach wrote his King Arthur stories in the 12th century his subject was the individual casting off the limits of the collective. The same kind of thing occurred with the Twin War Gods story of Navaho legend. The society is in trouble and the individual must go out into the world to save everyone with their acts of heroics—alone. When Hollywood adds all this “team” crap—and this “force of others” idiocy, the product on the screen gets watered down. American audiences are by their nature individualists. They don’t accept collectivist messaging in movies. They might endure them if there are cool action sequences or the leading lady takes her top off—but they won’t go out of their way to see the movie. Now that China has bought up Legendary Pictures they are learning the hard way. Their movie with Matt Damon about the Great Wall of China bombed in America big time. And even the latest King Kong movie fell short—which I wanted to like badly.

I knew Kong: Skull Island was in trouble after the scene where the natives on the island were a bunch of utopian hippies who didn’t have any personal property or individualized desires. They were autonomous robots who had learned to love serving King Kong as sacrificial elements. As a result the movie only made 150 million in the domestic market but it did very well in communist China taking the film up and over the 500 million mark worldwide. That paid the bills for the movie, but just barely considering that King Kong has almost 100 years of film history to build from. It should have made a billion dollars—and could have if the filmmakers made a movie about individuals instead of collective salvation. Audiences don’t attend movies as a collective. They might share that experience with others—collectively, but they watch movies as individuals.

I watched with pain studio executives trying to explain why Scarlett Johansson couldn’t make Ghost in the Shell work. With a production budget of 110 million it only had a domestic take of 26 million dollars. The studio thought that Johansson did well in the Avenger movies so obviously she’d bring 100 million dollars to Ghost in the Shell? No. People don’t go to movies to see stars—you’d think that Hollywood would have learned this by now—they go to see stories about individuals. At least that’s how it is in America—which then drives the world market. And if Ghost in the Shell would have been cast by a Japanese woman—it would have done even worse—just for the record. The content of the film is what hurt it—not that Scarlett Johansson was “white.”

Here’s the bad news, kids growing up today are interested in other things. Their video games and phone apps are much cooler and individual based storytelling then modern movies and they just aren’t going to be there as adults giving Hollywood money. The labor unions have driven up the cost of making movies to the point where small budgeted risky projects can’t be made. For instance, you never see today movies like Days of Thunder or Top Gun being made where a Tom Cruise character who is over-the-top individually confident but loses his nerve after some tragedy, and the whole point of the character is in overcoming his individual fears and returning to the glory of being an arrogant son-of-a-bitch. But that’s what American audiences want and Hollywood isn’t giving it to them so the movie industry is on life support held up by my generation who still goes to movies out of nostalgia. The generation after mine will do something else because these movies don’t speak to them as individuals. And those are the cold hard facts.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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

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Published on April 09, 2017 17:00

April 8, 2017

Zelda and the New Nintendo Switch: Something new, amazing, and just wonderful in every way

Storytelling is very important to our culture—it’s something that truly distinguishes us from any other living thing in the known universe—and we need it for feeding our minds as much as we need water and food to drive our bodies. Stories may well be the most important thing to human culture. Just consider that while Trump was talking to the press about what he thought about Syria gassing its people—he was playing the new Star Wars movie Rogue One in the background. Trump seems to have a very healthy love of stories—especially movies and I’d go so far to say that it has made him an exceptionally good president—because he’s a thinker. He may have the articulation skills of a typical Queens taxi driver—but he does think deeply about things from many angles—and stories certainly help develop that skill.

Among the kind of storytelling that we perform in modern times, video games are certainly at the top of the importance list because in a lot of ways they are the new dominate form—replacing books and movies as the cultural go-to method of telling them. So when I run into a good video game, I typically talk about—and if it’s truly exceptional I’ll write about it. Some recent games that amazed me with their technical and storytelling achievements have been Uncharted 4 for Playstation 4 and Rush Blood for Playstation VR. Not only are those great games, but they tell stories in completely new and literally uncharted ways that I have been amazed by.

Way back, twenty years ago, in the mid-90s while my two daughters were growing up and learning to read I had bought a Nintendo 64 and the latest Zelda title at the time called Ocarina in Time to play with them. It was too complicated for them to play but they’d sit with me on the couch and watch me play because the story was so compelling and there was a lot of text to read—so in a lot of ways it helped them learn to read. There are enough words to read in a Zelda game that essentially makes it a moving graphic novel. The plots are thick—the philosophy unmistakably Japanese yet there is a little King Arthur in the storylines which makes the Zelda franchise highly sought after in western cultures. Like Star Wars, there is a very healthy mixture of eastern and western philosophy reflected in the presented mythology which makes it an incredibly powerful storytelling device. I often have said that I thought Ocarina in Time was the most intelligent video game I have ever played and it holds a special place in the hearts of my family because for about a 100 hours at a key time in my children’s life, we played Zelda each night before they went to bed and they have never forgotten the experience—even to this day. I wasn’t allowed to play the game without them—so we did the whole thing together with them helping me make decisions that eventually won the game even though they were too little to play it themselves at the time.

Now they are all grown up obviously and Nintendo still has a place in my heart because of Zelda. I typically buy whatever Nintendo creates out of loyalty to them because of their direct attachment to the Zelda franchise. I famously tell the story often about the various elections that I’ve been a part of, especially the Lakota school levy events where I had something on the ballot that I was leading the charge for and the media always wants to know what kind of watch party you might be having so they can get reactions later that night from the winners and losers. Well, my routine was not to rent out a bar to watch the results pouring in with my team nervously around a big screen television—but to play Nintendo Wii. The game of choice for my wife and I was Wii Golf which allowed me to play as if I were on a real course somewhere, but from the convenience of my living room so I could monitor the results and answer questions from the media in an expeditious manner. Nintendo has always been very good with driving the video game culture in creative ways to use the tools of game play in new ways—and their Wii system really opened the doors to interactive gaming where you could stand in your living room and interact with the big screen of your television in a virtual environment.

When word came out that Nintendo’s latest masterpiece was something called the Nintendo Switch, and that they had a new Zelda game for it called Breath of the Wild I had to get it. It was simply an unquestioned reality. The Switch featured new, unique game play options that were essentially unheard of in previous markets; you could play Nintendo Switch from your television in the traditional way. But–if you had to catch a flight to a different city for a business trip, you could take the whole thing with you. Plus, virtually every part of the game system including the controllers could be utilized in some unique aspect of game play making the Nintendo Switch incredibly versatile as a system. I thought it was an astonishing breakthrough yet again for the good people at Nintendo. So my wife and I made it a point to hunt one down because as of this writing they are extremely hard to get at the store. Since their lunch at the start of March 2017 they sell as soon as they hit the shelves at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, and Gamestop. That’s typical for Nintendo products, as a company they often under produce so they can drive up demand with frustration—which increases their market value so they create positive word of mouth which drives up their price—a good healthy business model. But even for Nintendo, I don’t think they thought they’d have such an intense desire from the public for this new Switch because the sales seemed to be getting away from them. We tried for a solid month to get a Switch all over Cincinnati and Dayton with no luck. A few units would show up at a Target or Wal-Mart and we’d head to the store and they’d be sold out before we could get there. People would watch the inventories of stores online and do like we would-drive in to buy the units the minute they showed up. Outlets refused to hold anything because the demand was too high.

Just for context the Target in West Chester had a return of a Nintendo Switch—a used one returned to the store for whatever reason. I had been watching the Target website all week and noticed that one Switch unit was put into stock and literally I was in the car within five minutes to make the ten minute drive to the store. When I got back there another guy had just bought the unit and the cashier told me that all the units have been sold in this way. People literally were standing in line as the supply trucks tried to restock the store and you just had to be lucky enough to be at the store when this happened. Because as soon as the inventory clerks scanned the units into their systems and they showed up online, people were buying up everything within the hour. I could tell the same story for just about every other store all over Cincinnati—not just Target, but everyone. I was starting to wonder if I’d ever get my hands on a Switch.

Then it happened, my wife was at Wal-Mart at the Bridgewater location and ten Switches were put in stock just as she was heading there to check—as she was there to shop for other things. Of that ten nine of them were gone instantly and she got her hands on the last one. She sent me a text letting me know that our search was over and I rushed home to unbox it and play it for the first time. And let me just say that playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an extraordinary experience. I’ve been playing it for a week now and it is just an astonishing video game—it’s deep and very fun to play—and it brings out the best of what Nintendo’s Switch can do.

I have found that I like to play Zelda as the portable unit almost as much as the traditional TV based console. It is very effective to be able to take the game everywhere with you, airports, the breakfast table, to play while watching the news—it is extremely versatile and well worth all the work it took to get my hands on one. But the new Zelda is simply astonishing and well worth the money. I continue to be extremely amazed and now that I’ve incorporated it into my lifestyle, I can see that I’ll get a lot of mileage out of that Nintendo Switch. It’s one more technical marvel that is carrying mankind forward in ways that many never thought possible. For me it is encouraging to see so much extraordinary quality on display from the mechanical features of the Switch hardware to the subtleties of programming featured in the Breath of the Wild video game. The people who made Breath of the Wild are obviously very intelligent and it is refreshing to me to see so many young people calling it the best video game they’ve ever played. But more than anything, it is great to see so much optimism emerging from a story telling market. I can’t think of anything negative about it. For instance, I had a really stressful week where many important decisions had to be made that might have an impact on millions and millions of investment dollars. So how did I manage all that stress—I took my Nintendo Switch with me everywhere and played it at restaurants and in shopping malls to blow off the steam of anxiety that often comes with doing important things in life. And you know what—it worked marvelously. It is so wonderful to take a world like Zelda with you everywhere you go—and to give yourself a break when you really need it. And for that, Nintendo as a company deserves a lot of admiration.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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

April 7, 2017

The Art of a President: Donald Trump’s brilliance is the best gift I could ask for

Donald Trump must have known that it was my birthday because I couldn’t have received a better gift. After all, the world has been poking the fences since his election.

China has been advancing in the South China Sea against Taiwan and Japan. North Korea is threatening to lunch missiles into America with their constant tests—Russia has continued to buzz American naval vessels in contentious waters. Iran is sponsoring terrorism everywhere they can, Democrats are fighting everything Trump tries to do in the White House including trying to block the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Supposedly Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner are fighting it out in the Oval Office in front of Donald Trump and we’ve discovered that Susan Rice under Barack Obama’s direction had spied on the Trump transition team—illegally. The CIA, FBI, and all connecting intelligence agencies have been caught in a DEEP STATE scheme that has them all looking horrible and in the face of all that—Trump launched an airstrike against Syria while hosting the Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Winter White House in South Florida. After the press conference announcing the strike you could almost hear Trump say (nonverbally) “Xi, if you don’t straighten out North Korea—you’re next. And by the way—I’m going to tax your exports. Have a nice day. Would you like some more wine?” This was the art of the deal at its finest and I can say that this is my most satisfying birthday in my life—because I’ve been waiting to live in a country with this kind of winning record since the beginning.

PALM BEACH, Fla. — North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the U.S-China trade imbalance as well as other points of tension between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are being overshadowed by the U.S. missile strikes on Syria.

Nonetheless, the two leaders are meeting for a second day at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as planned Friday. Their first-night summit dinner wrapped up shortly before the U.S. announced the missile barrage on an air base in Syria in retaliation against Syrian President Bashar Assad for a chemical weapons attack against civilians caught up in his country’s long civil war.

The US military fired more than 50 tomahawk missiles at al-Shayrat military airfield at 8.45pm EDT Thursday
Moves comes just hours after Trump said ‘something should happen’ following Tuesday’s gas-attack atrocity
Trump took action after more than 80 were killed and many more were injured in the sarin poison gas attack
‘Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack,’ he said after launching the strike
Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a furious response calling airstrike an ‘illegal act of aggression’
US says airfield was used to store toxic weapons and was the base for the aircraft involved in the sarin attack
Claims that nine were killed, and more were injured, in the strike which has severely damaged the airbase
US told Moscow it was launching an airstrike about 30 minutes in advance – but did not ask for permission

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4388834/America-launches-airstrikes-Syria.html

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-xi-meet-again-in-shadow-of-missile-strikes-on-syria/ar-BBzvF6Q?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp

I know Constitutional purists like Rand Paul are upset at the Syrian airstrike—but when America is the only country in the world capable of taking an authority position against bullies—there is an ethical obligation to act when we see poor little children suffering under the failures of politics—and that’s what happened in Syria. It was the right thing to do under any circumstance. But, if Trump had to pick a target to pull the world in behind him and dispel the rumors of his alliance with the Russians—Syria was it. Even as Gorsuch was nominated to the Supreme Court even Chuck Schumer was singing praises for Trump’s decisive move. It was rather astonishing.

Trump has not suddenly become a globalist. He’s not about to become an interventionist. But he needed to take a shot to set the stage for all the challenges going on around the world—especially with China and North Korea. And he had to set up the relationship with Russia. Nobody ever thought Trump was going to eat out of Russia’s hand—as I have been saying for a long time. It will have to be the other way around—and this was the first step. Trump had the moral high ground and he took it—and now the world is wondering how they didn’t see it all along.

This is how it is different having a real executive in the White House as opposed to a typical politician always sticking their hand out looking for campaign donations. Trump doesn’t care if Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner want to kill each other. He’s more interested in the result of their conflict—he needs different points of view to flush out a truth. That’s what good leaders do, they don’t necessarily want everyone to get along. They want a competition of ideas and through conflict truth justice and reality are defined. So the Trump White House thrives in conflict. It doesn’t want everyone sitting around a campfire singing songs and giving each other reach-arounds. It wants action, and when it comes time to make hard decisions, Trump can make them because he can see the truth through the combat of opinion. He has a wife for the softer times in his life. But at all other times, he loves the battlefield of conflict because that’s where life thrives and honesty, bravery, and valor emerge.

I’ve been waiting for this all of my life. The closest I’ve seen to this kind of American decisiveness was when Ronald Reagan sent an airstrike against Libya—and I remember the effect that had on the world. Trump has had his moment and now he can negotiate with everyone from a position of strength. It had to come sometime and now that he has done it there are many more opportunities for peace than there was before the attack. Without this bombing the chances for violence by North Korea against South Korea is much greater. The threat of China moving against Japan has much larger odds. And Russia would continue to buzz American ships without wondering when or if Trump would react. Now he has and even considering more aggression against America might provoke war. So Trump has captured the high ground against every single one of his global rivals including his political ones with one swift stroke. And it was just a brilliant time and place to do so.

I’m sure this won’t be the last time and I’m also sure that all this new power won’t go to Trump’s head. Why—because he is used to being at the top of everything he does and he’s battle hardened to the perils of success. Out of all the people in the world who could do this very difficult job as a modern American president with all the factions that are ankle biting out there, only Trump presently is qualified to perform the tasks. This is precisely why I voted for Trump and I am very proud to see him doing such a very excellent job. I feel very sorry for the kids involved in all the evils around the world who are suffering under bad people. And this bombing in Syria won’t save them all. But many more will be safe because of it—and like all good things in life—there are many more positives than negatives with the action. For us in America—it’s good to see a president who finally knows how to juggle all these bananas—because it’s long overdue.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Published on April 07, 2017 17:00

April 6, 2017

Rush Limbaugh Says We’re In A Civil War: He’s right, and what we need to do about it

I listen to Rush Limbaugh when I can, but not as often as I’d like. If I miss the show I try to catch the podcasts in my shop where I practice target shooting and doing gun repairs—which is soothing. A long time ago when I worked at the “Mill” (Cincinnati Milacron in Oakley) Rush Limbaugh was on every day in every building on the shop floor. You couldn’t go to the restroom without hearing Rush from 12 to 3 PM during the Clinton Years—so I have a point of reference to go on here. But during yesterday’s broadcast Rush said something that I didn’t think he’d ever say. I had said it about five years ago, but Rush finally said it and he was right. Rush in my mind is mainstream. Even though the radical loons from the left think Rush represents the “hard right” Limbaugh is in fact a moderate in my mind so for him to say that America was in another “civil war” was quite a statement. Listen to the broadcast above specifically the second hour. I consider that admission to be a turning point in this long war—because before you can fix something, you have to identify it. Admitting that America is split into a civil war condition is the first step in solving the current national problem. However, the next is in determining who wins—because obviously both sides are too far apart to ever come to agreements. The philosophic positions are just too great and the political left isn’t interested—as they have demonstrated during the opening days of the Trump administration—at living peacefully together.

Rush asked a very hard question—how do you know who wins a civil war? Well, it comes down to one side recognizing the authority of the other and presently the political left is unwilling to do that—as Republicans have been so gracious in the past. So there is no shame in pushing Democrats out of the political process because we gave them the table under the Obama presidency and they showed us what they were made of. They abused their power and that caused Trump to be elected—to correct all those mistakes. But Republicans can at least say they played by the rules. Democrats have no such intention—and Limbaugh did a good job of pointing out the case as it stands.

That means that we have to not only beat Democrats in elections, but we have to beat them at their fundamental philosophy. To win this war we cannot have a “live and let live” attitude toward them in movies, music, and culture—we must challenge them at every phase of life and we must have a focus on “winning.” Not just compromising, but beating those idiots into a pulp to the point where they must capitulate—or be utterly destroyed. There is no reasoning with those people on the political left so we must beat them into submission intellectually until they either adopt our positions, or they are put to an end. It’s as simple as that.

I’m not saying that we must impose physical violence on the political left, but when they start the fight, we must finish it. Otherwise, intellect is the weapon of today. They cannot fight smart people, so it must be the smartest of the conservative base who must be the knights on this battlefield because it’s not cannons and arrows that will win—its superior strategic positioning and philosophic concept. “The pen is truly mightier than the sword” as I’ve demonstrated repeatedly. But that is only one weapon of war. The use of the Second Amendment is one of the most powerful aspects of our position—because not even Hollywood can use the guilt game against conservatives—because without the gun, Hollywood would go bankrupt, which ironically is already happening. Guns aren’t just for shooting, they are symbols of self-reliance and the political left hates that concept. So just having a gun does a lot to undo the political left. Using a gun as part of your recreational life does a lot more. So one of the best ways to destroy the political left is to destroy their soft, snowflake sensibilities with “in your face” audacity. They have certainly used that tactic on the abortion issue and many other leftist topics. Now is the time to turn that tide against them with conservative vantage points for a change—and the gun is the most effective weapon in that battle—not for shooting and killing—but for the self-reliance that they represent.

The political left does not represent America. They represent the stagnate old remains of Europe. Recently while I was in Europe I saw clearly why progressives in America love Europe’s centralized control so much. You could see it everywhere—Europeans are heavily encumbered by ridiculous rules intent to govern every part of their lives. For instance, if you go to Burger King in London and you get a large drink with your meal—it’s like the size of a kids drink in America—because in England—and the rest of Europe there are many rules on serving sizes and ingredients designed to take the strain off their socialist health care systems. Everything is small and served in reduced amounts—as opposed to America. No wonder Michael Bloomberg thought he could limited the size of soft drinks in New York with similar rules that they have in the United Kingdom. From his point of view Europe was already doing it and it really is all progressives want to do—is control other people’s lives.

From my little shop at my house I could make endless amounts of ammunition and maintain many firearms without the outside world having anything to do with any of it. I don’t need a store or a gun manufacturer to make guns. A simple machine shop can make everything needed—and that is nice to know. As I work out there I think about the political left and their stupidity in thinking that they can destroy the firearms market by taxing ammunition and putting tight restrictions on firearms manufacturers hoping to put them out of business—because that’s their intention. That mentality doesn’t come from Americans it comes from European sympathizers who happen to have moved to America and been trained to think in a progressive fashion. The best way to challenge them is to put it in their face and make them realize that there is nothing they can do to stop firearms in America—because the need for them arises from a philosophy that is specific to our culture. It is not part of European culture, or even eastern culture—it is specific to America.

Just keep in mind that to win this war that you must do something. Letting the other side off the hook with silence won’t win the day. You must engage them with a shameless position toward your American philosophy and let them perish under its light like the devil might melt under Holy Water. Whatever you do, don’t hide anymore. Don’t give them the illusion that they are the only ones brave enough to be on the battlefield. Join them there and outshine them. Force them to retreat to their little liberal campus groups and pull out their hair in frustration. Because Republicans—“conservatives” must now focus on winning this war. It’s not enough to have Trump in the White House. Now is the time to run liberals off the field of battle and force them into hiding for a change—and to bend to our will if we hope to save humanity. That’s what’s at stake and what must be done.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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Published on April 06, 2017 17:00

April 5, 2017

Being Fearless: What the Democrats are truly terrified of–people who don’t need them

I’ve already provided all the reasons that the Democrats are losing ground and how they are making themselves into an extinct political party. I have also covered how the Trump administration is innocent as to charges of collusion with Russia and how it is actually the Democrats who are guilty of that action as they were the party that was in power and had the relationships with Russia. But at this point all of that is irrelevant because something much deeper is going on for which everyone is missing. The great desperation of the Democratic Party that they are revealing presently—that last gasp of the dying donkey as I’ve described it, is the realization that their methods of incursion have forever been vanquished and as I look back on it—I’m very proud of the role I played in it.

I was a very “rambunctious” little boy in grade school. Don’t ask me how or where I got it from but I had a rebellious streak that was extremely mature, even at a very young age. I’ve told some of these stories before, but I’ll put them together for context—in kindergarten I went toe to toe with my teacher in a way that was sometimes excessive. I hated her and she set a pace for my entire public school experience—right out of the gate. She threatened my mom to fail me from kindergarten after just a few months of attending Liberty Elementary School on Princeton Road way back in 1973 and all that started because I dressed up a bear for a class assignment in jeans when the pants were supposed to be corduroys. She literally went insane over the issue and was institutionalized shortly after I moved on through her class. In first grade I poked the class bully in the eye with my scissors because he threatened me. He was a lot bigger than me and much stronger—so I did whatever I had to do to win that fight. It was in class in front of everyone, including the teacher. For the next four years I was constantly in trouble and getting “swats” from the principal’s office—but my behavior and love for fighting never changed. In fourth grade a pack of kids tried to shove the drug “speed” down my mouth on the school bus and I spit it out of the window causing a massive fight on the bus. I have always had a policy of no drugs in my life which holds to this day. There were many fights after that as I had a reputation with the druggies and they wanted to conform me. At this point I was good with the jocks because I was the fastest kid in school and I won the pull-up category in the winter Olympics in my fifth-grade year. But in sixth grade I had many more problems with several more teachers and was in constant fights with 7th and 8th graders. One eighth grade kid who was a lot bigger than me by almost half jumped me at my locker and I literally shoved the kid through the principal’s office door and the fight ended up in his office. Since the kid was again bigger than me and a lot stronger I had to find some leverage point, so I took the fight into the principal’s office literally with blood everywhere which was really the only way to win that one. I gained a reputation for being crazy which suited me just fine. My nickname back then was “Animal” from the Muppet’s character—because that’s how my peers saw me. In high school is where I started to pull out ahead of my classmates in every category. No longer were kids bigger and meaner than me and I had learned martial arts so I could block anything anybody threw. I started winning everything I did and some people on the other side ended up dying through these actions and I went into my senior year pretty much invincible. Nobody at Lakota challenged me to anything so the fights went over into other school systems at drive-ins, arcades, and just about anywhere I went. My reputation was such that I was hired several times as a body-guard and a bouncer in places where I wasn’t even old enough to attend. I was employed by the Chinese mob from Chicago and my next job after that was at a car dealership where I sometimes did repo work for the bank—and they sent me to all the ugly jobs—because I was the only one crazy enough to do them. Luckily, I met my wife about this time and she gave me a reason to evolve into a different direction. Most of the people I know from that time are dead or are in jail—so meeting my wife was a very positive experience for me. Anyway, the sum of that little story is that I was never afraid of anything—and I’d fight anybody anywhere on any terms—and I’m still like that. Schools are places where they pound you into conformity. The places were never about learning—they were about learning your place in society and I was one of those rare people who came out of it unbroken. If you add to all these experiences my expert use of bullwhips and a love of guns I really don’t worry about any threats to my person, or my loved ones. I have a long history of keeping the bad guys at bay and looking back on it I’m a little shocked that I managed through it all from my earliest years completely pure as to my resistance to bullies. I never liked them or bent over backwards to yield to them no matter where they were in our society—adults, mean kids, druggies—thugs, killers, dead beats—anybody. And at almost 50 years old, I’m pretty proud of that—and I’m certainly not going to change now.

So when it has come time to make a stand for something I’ve always done it and in politics I knew what I was doing. Like for instance with the teacher’s union at Lakota when I put myself on the front pages of the Cincinnati newspapers over that issue way back in 2010. My dad was very concerned when I went on WLW radio and called out the teacher’s union at Lakota for driving up the costs of running the school forcing property tax increases. Like I told him—“what are they going to do to me?” He knew what I was talking about but he thought I went overboard—because he had trouble with unions in the past even over unimportant things. Unions like most liberal concepts always use the threat of force to sell their “altruistic” ideas. My strategy on the Lakota issue from the very beginning was to take that threat away from my opposition—like I do in most things. I mean I’m not a maniac who runs around threatening people all the time. Generally, I’m pretty nice and can use many forms of communication to convey a thought. I don’t have to threaten to kill people all the time to get my point across. But I do have a reputation, and that gets around when people start checking you out. And I knew that the union wouldn’t be able to do anything to me that I couldn’t easily swat away—so I got involved and my presence changed things.

I only tell that story because it takes a certain kind of person to break through the ice of fear that usually governors people in their daily lives because unfortunately they learn in their public schools to keep their mouths shut and not to stand for much of anything. You are taught what to think and when to think it and the peer groups form to be the enforcers—and those categories usually last a lifetime. I’d say that Donald Trump likely could tell a similar story as I just did. I’m not saying I should get an Eagle Scout award or be put on a pedestal of Christian orthodoxy—but if you want someone who will stand up to bullies solving problems, then a background like mine is probably the kind of person you want for the job. As I did things I wrote down the why and how and other people started utilizing the same strategies. Other people started sticking up for themselves and the liberal advocates out there were seeing for the first time that their Rules for Radicals book wasn’t working anymore on conservatives. Really, for the first time since Al Capon’s mobsters in Chicago, Democrats were being challenged in ways they weren’t used to and panic began to set in. All this opened the door to Donald Trump’s run for president in 2016. I may have started the snowball rolling along with other people. The net gains from the conservative movement that was no longer afraid that union leaders would show up to their houses and string up their family in the dead of night was beginning to embolden politicians to throw John Boehner out of the Speakership and to put a wide field of Republicans into the race for the White House starting in 2015. Since conservatives were no longer afraid of the Democratic bully, they put their support behind Donald Trump as a way to finally strike back.

And that’s where we are. As people observed some of us early pioneers challenging the establishment and standing up to the threat of physical violence—it emboldened more people to fight back as well. At Lakota when the union tried to impose fear against me—the results were not favorable. It was laughable really. Nobody is going to attack me to my face and get away with it. And once people saw that on a mass level, more people realized that they too could fight back—and that the liberals weren’t so scary. Now, today, Trump is in the White House and he doesn’t put up with anything and Democrats literally don’t know what to do because their only playbook is the Rules from Radicals approach by Saul Alinsky. The way to beat liberals is to take away their threat to violence. Once you do that, they are lost.

I don’t go out of my way to be tough. I don’t work out obsessively or watch my diet to the point where I need to maintain a certain image. I just do my thing and enjoy my life and I seldom think about fighting other people. However, I internally know how to deal with anything that someone imposes on me and I have a long history of not taking any crap—and I’ve had it all my life. I never remember a time when I didn’t behave this way so the best I know is that I was born this way. That made me into an adult who was completely free of ever yielding to another human being under any condition. I can honestly say that I’ve never been coerced to do something against my will at any point in my life and I’m sure Donald Trump is the same kind of person. And now that those kinds of people are now involved in politics, it completely defangs the Democrats because they have nothing else in their arsenal but the use of fear to recruit members to their political philosophy. When they don’t have the tool of fear, they are lost. And that is what they really fear now that Trump is taking the White House—and America, to places they can’t follow. That is the air behind their screams as their party dies, and to me, it is music to my ears.

Being free is not something any government can give you dear reader. You can only give it to yourself. There is no law that can make you safe. Only you can learn how to be essentially invincible protecting yourself from the intentions of others. If you are the smartest person in the room, nobody can beat you. You don’t have to be the biggest, the smartest by IQ, or even the best—you just have to have the skills to keep anybody else from getting at you—strategically. And once you master that you can promise yourself success 100% of the time. You can’t promise that you can win over others 100% of the time, but you can keep them from beating you 100% of the time. For a liberal to be successful they must get at you and if you deny them of that—they are utterly powerless, which is exactly where the Democrats find themselves in 2017. The best way to make yourself free is to make it so that in your life nobody can attack you—and once you’ve done that you can begin to taste a life without fear—and adversely, a life without Democrats. With Trump, his polling numbers won’t drop below 35% and when all this first started—say back in 2010—it was much lower as to those who were willing to stand tall and live fearlessly in the voting booth. And four years from now that 35% will be even higher and that is the indication which is terrifying those who live off the fear of good people everywhere.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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

April 4, 2017

The Crimes of Susan Rice: How to prosecute the people who are supposed to enforce the law when they are guilty

RICE ORDERED SPY DOCS ON TRUMP? https://t.co/bL2nZRFxk9

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) April 4, 2017

The way that the Obama White House worked, “legal” meant anything that could be manipulated between the Executive Branch and the Department of Justice—both of which he controlled. There has been much evidence to the obvious coercive tactics used by the Obama administration to pull America further to the political left and the wake of that effort has caused the present civil war in the United States where half the nation refuses to join the other half that is now openly socialist leaning. Those legal lines were manipulated during Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal in targeting conservative groups for their 5013C status, the way in which Obamacare was created and implemented, and worst of all—the Hillary Clinton deleted emails which were obviously designed to destroy evidence so that they could never get caught—which of course they were caught—destroying evidence. The evidence itself didn’t reveal the crime, but the destruction of evidence did reveal the Obama administration’s motivations.

And with the dependability of a German clock they did it again—under the guidance of Susan Rice the Obama administration spied on Donald Trump using the power of government to attempt to secure the fate of their political party. But who could blame them—after all, Wikileaks had just made them look like the fools that they were and they knew they needed some dirt from the other side to recover—which they never found. So now they went out and committed a crime to get information that turned out to be nothing. Their plan would have worked if they had found something—but instead all they really found was that General Flynn spoke to a Russian ambassador and neglected to inform Vice President Pence about it—which in the scheme of things is a small technicality. But the crime of the cover-up and the abuses of power are immense and might surprise people, except for readers who frequent here.

Former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president, according to former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova.

“What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals,” diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group Monday.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/03/susan-rice-ordered-spy-agencies-to-produce-detailed-spreadsheets-involving-trump/#ixzz4dHi9dUJU

The word “legal” when it’s used by thieves like this is dangerous—because what it implies is that nobody did anything wrong. Make no mistake about it—what Susan Rice did obviously under the guidance of the president of the United States was unethical and it could only be made legal by the means that Hillary Clinton destroyed evidence with her email server—by denying prosecutable evidence the way any lawyer might defend a client. Their client might be guilty as hell—but if there isn’t DNA or something that links a murderer to a crime, then they can’t be convicted. That is the grand danger of allowing people who worked in the legal profession to also work in such a powerful position as can be found in the Executive Branch of our government.

Rice won't agree to testify because she won't get away with lying to Congress like she did with Benghazi?

— Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) April 4, 2017

Based on the Clinton years and now the Obama years we may want to rethink ever doing such a thing again—because they actually used the law as a weapon to cover their crimes—which is never good. And that is what they have done to Donald Trump. They created a “legitimate” cover story—such as spying on Russian connections—which is why the political left is pushing that story so aggressively—because they were caught doing it. Obama could justify the order because of comments Trump made tongue in cheek about Russians finding Hillary’s deleted emails. But the real target of the spying wasn’t spies to Russia—it was Trump’s political strategies so that they might be able to counter them and win the election.

Thankfully Trump was smarter than they were and most of his campaign strategies were done on the fly literally from his Trump airplane where he spent most of his time in the last three months of the presidential campaign. He came home every night and the employees of the campaign chattered the way that employees do, which is what the Obama people were listening to—but Trump had his team on his plane flying all over the country and most of the arrangements regarding strategy were made there giving the Democrats very little to go on.

Yet the Obama people led by Rice intended to commit a crime hidden behind a legal precedent. And like the IRS case, many people should go to jail—but they probably won’t because the same people who are supposed to enforce the law are the ones who committed the crime. The only thing this time that’s different is that we have a president and an attorney general who will see it as I’ve just described it and they are inclined to action. The constant reminder from the political left that Russians hacked our American election process is to provide a cover story for this legal argument when the courts finally catch up to everything—once the smoke has cleared.

Now we know why Obama was so nice to Trump on the first days of the White House transition and why he hasn’t had much to say about Trump unraveling all the Obama era policies—for which only health care remains. Because he’s guilty and he needs the Russian story to stick to keep his administration out of hot water. And under those conditions, you don’t want to get caught providing further testimony on the matter—good or bad. Without proof that the Russians actually did anything—their cover story is pretty thin which Tucker Carlson on Fox News started to uncover during his show on 4/3/2017. The truth is, there isn’t any proof that the Russians hacked the American election process.

Lyin', leakin' Susan Rice stammered through her soft ball interview with Dem PR person Andrea Mitchell.

— Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) April 4, 2017

F.B.I. Director Comey blundered the whole case himself when he uttered during testimony before Congress intentions that the Russians had without bringing forth any evidence to support it hoping that his spectral access to intelligence might be enough to sell the story—but it wasn’t. It was embarrassing testimony for which Trey Gowdy challenged him on—politely. Gowdy knows that there is no evidence that can be produced that the Russians did anything to get Trump elected. The fault for the Democratic loss is squarely on the Hillary Campaign and the failed policies of the Obama administration. They had lied, cheated and manipulated their way to the top only to crash and burn once caught—which at this point they all have.

The Susan Rice news is huge, and the only reason it’s not Watergate level big is that our media is in on the act. The story is actually too huge to cover because so many people who present the news and temperament of our times to us are guilty. It will likely take decades for it to settle into the American consciousness because all the people involved will deny everything for the rest of their lives and only fresh faces will have the courage to deal with these massive tragedies. But it all starts with Trump and without him, we wouldn’t have this much. That’s why I elected him—and so far he’s doing exactly what I want him to do—including golfing with Rand Paul to make a deal on health care. When Obama played golf he was scheming. When Trump does it, he’s making deals for America—and that’s all the difference in the world.

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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

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Published on April 04, 2017 17:00

April 3, 2017

The Dream of Cabela’s: A pizza guy from Westgate Towers

When I was a kid my idea of a great day was any day I had a chance to go to the Army Surplus Store in Fairfield, Ohio. Most of my cloths and equipment that fueled my childhood came from that one store. So it is no surprise that as an adult, some of my very best days still come from that same place, but now there are many more options for me than I ever dreamed of. Now when I need a good day free of the politics from the outside world, I go to Cabela’s in West Chester right across from the Liberty Center shopping complex and every single visit is just a wonderful experience. Specifically I go there to buy 209 shotgun primers for my Cowboy Fast Draw Association activities. I shoot between 50 to 100 rounds per day at my private range, so I go through a lot of primers and Cabela’s carries them in their reloading section which is easy to get to without a lot of hassle. At Bass Pro in nearby Forest Park they keep the primers behind the counter which means you have to get someone to help you, and I most of the time don’t feel like talking to anybody, so Cabela’s is where I buy most of them.

I love to have a hobby that gives me a reason to go to Cabela’s so often. I remember when it wasn’t so easy to get outdoor related equipment, and to get the best stuff you had to order it through the mail. This idea of everything you might need for some grand adventure being available at the slightest impulse is something I treasure greatly. On this latest visit it was a very nice spring day and I had a particularly stressful week. I enjoy the reloading section at Cabela’s because it oozes self-reliance and American ingenuity. I had recently returned from Europe where guns are extremely taboo so it was very nice to look around and see all the pro-American clothing, knives and guns that surround that section of the store. Then to consider that with the items you can get at Cabela’s you can pretty much become your own ammunition factory. If guns represent freedom from the tyranny of political mistakes—which happen all the time—the ability to reload your own ammunition is the next step and I never get tired of looking through their selection of dies, brass and powder to see what’s new.

I did see some .500 S&W Magnum ammunition that had only 350 grain bullets, which might not break the arm of guests I let shoot my big gun the next time I’m entertaining out-of-town clients. The price was only $32 for a box of twenty which was really good. People who come to America from places where you can’t have guns love to shoot guns if they get the chance. Back in the old days before the world went mad, such people went to strip clubs to see things they might not be able to see in their more rigid cultures. I’m personally not a fan of that kind of thing—but shooting is another matter, especially since West Chester now has a very good shooting range at Premier. Men especially, would rather shoot the big .500 Magnum which as I’ve stated has its own pillow in my bed with my wife and I, than they would seeing some T&A. You can see that anywhere these days, but shooting a big “man’s” gun isn’t, so reasonably priced ammunition at Cabela’s was a welcomed site.

Cabela’s is a purely American invention. Nowhere in Japan would anybody see anything like Cabela’s, where you can buy various nuts to eat and other snacks just twenty-five feet from guns, knives and ammo and each time I visit I think about just how nice it is. Everything at Cabela’s is big, like the way that American’s think. And even though we take them for granted in the United States, the water fountain at Cabela’s works really good—the bathrooms are big, and clean—it is just a really good place to visit to recharge your batteries. I was literally just in Paris a few weeks ago and I didn’t see a single water fountain anywhere—not in the train stations, not in the museums—nowhere. In the United States you can see them just about everywhere in public, but not in other places in the world. So in defiance and to celebrate the kind of abundance that American society produces, Cabela’s has a nice, beautiful water fountain that pushes up a nice stream of water that doesn’t require you to put your head too close to the fountain itself. In more primitive times you’d have to search out a creek that some animal hadn’t pissed in upstream to get some fresh water. But in modern society, especially at nice outdoor shopping complexes like Cabela’s, you can get a nice drink from the drinking fountain and come away stress free and hydrated to continue the hunt for whatever you were looking for.

I often think about the logistics it requires to offer things like drinking water to a water fountain, keeping bathrooms clean and ensuring that customers get everything they are looking for in a shopping experience that might not sell some items on the shelf for months after they had been acquired for display. It can be complicated. But at Cabela’s they feature a nice waterfall in the back of the store that has fish in it. It’s not nearly as nice as the one they have at Bass Pro in Forest Park, but the running water does give off a fresh air feeling that you might expect to feel on an early morning hike through the mountains. I’m aware of it as I go through the reloading section each time and I catch myself looking at the items on the shelf just a bit longer because it’s an enjoyable experience.

To a lot of people it probably seems like a small thing to think about, but I thought it worthy to note. I really appreciate my Cabela’s in West Chester. It is one of my favorite places to go and just knowing that I can get away for an hour or so and put my mind in such a positive place is very valuable. I’m more aware of it now because of my recent trip overseas. If I wasn’t doing a lot of shooting and had a reason to visit so often, I probably wouldn’t notice much. But having the ability to shoot in my garage and get my materials just a few miles away is something that is very unusual in the world. I recently spoke to a guy from Morocco who was working as a pizza guy in Canterbury just outside of the Westgate Towers and he was very interested in me and my cowboy hat that I wore in there to pick up food several times over the course of the month of February 2017. He wanted to know all about Donald Trump and if we could buy guns in our grocery stories. When he asked me that I thought of Cabela’s and I had to tell him truthfully that we could. He gave me the most exasperated look of excitement. “Really, you Americans are crazy,” he said with a smile. For which I replied, “ but nobody will try to invade us.”

At that moment the kid handed me my stacks of pizza and we exchanged money quietly saying nothing more, but both of us aware of some hidden tension coming from his direction. “Except for Obama.” I looked at him and thought for a moment of what he said. “You’re a pretty smart guy. You should come to America and make pizzas there. You might even get rich.” He smiled and said, “and I’ll be able to buy a gun?” I looked at him and said, “you could buy a gun, a nice pair of shoes, some new underwear and a giant can of almonds all under the same roof. And if you wanted to you could drive home with your very own boat attached to the back of your car. It’s called Cabela’s.” He smiled and said—“You make it sound like such a dream.” For which I said—“because it is. Have a nice day!”

Rich Hoffman

CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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