Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 418
February 4, 2014
The Kronies: They’re Konnected………..someone is smiling from their grave
Do you remember just yesterday Dear Reader when I spoke about how things are changing and how a simple iPad can now do what an entire television broadcast studio used to be needed for—and that we had all that power within our reach? Of course you do. Now consider what that power could do in the hands of a couple of guys who are entertainment industry professionals and have had opened their eyes to the way the world really is—and are using their power, and ability to articulate the problem of big government and crony capitalism in a whole new way. We’re not talking about some fringe wanna’ be types—but the guys behind some of the popular Burger King commercials and the new Back to the Future ad seen frequently during 2013 football games featuring Michael J. Fox. I’m talking about of course John Papola and Josh Meyers who run Emergent Order.com and are making quite a splash on the media circuit with their new toy line called The Kronies, where their hilarious viral video has taken the world by storm for the last couple of weeks. I don’t plan to rehash their fantastic enterprise here, but in case you have not yet seen their very good work, here it is.
John Papola is the CEO of Emergent Order and is an award-winning writer, producer and director with more than a decade of experience in broadcast television and marketing. As a creative principle at MTV, Nickelodeon and Spike TV, John launched numerous new shows, developed industry-leading branding practices, and supervised the promotion of flagship events. After the passing of his hero Steve Jobs, a grief-stricken John found solace at the bottom of an economics text-book. You would have seen the result of that enterprise featured here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. These are the same guys who produced the first video on that article.
Josh Meyers is the head of post production and is a 12-year veteran of broadcast television production and post production, with numerous award-winning campaigns and hundreds of spots under his belt. As a senior editor and post production supervisor, Josh produced long and short form content for Spike, Nickelodeon, Nicktoons, and World Wrestling Entertainment. After hours, Josh enjoys writing scripts for his dystopian science-fiction comic book series “Salsa Dawg,” which he hopes will one day be continuous with the DC Universe.
Here is an article where Glenn Beck covered their efforts at Emergent Order along with links to their work—well worth visiting.
One thing that struck me with these guys listening to their many media appearances for a very clever marketing campaign is that they could be doing just about anything they want—as far as career intentions—but they are choosing to use their power for good—not evil. While Steven Spielberg may think that he’s very clever helping President Obama market himself to the public, while producing a very good film about Abraham Lincoln where the Democrats were clearly the villains stoking the fires of the Civil War, these guys are openly making statements that would make Ayn Rand very, very proud. Their message behind The Kronies is essentially the net result of any policy that accepts Keynesian economics as a managing factor. Government cannot be in the business of regulating capitalism because the result is what is seen with The Kronies. And socialism—where the government openly controls everything—is even worse.
The kinds of people who pay attention to these kinds of things already know the message behind The Kronies. Yet, many more do not, and it is clear that John and Josh are using the same methods they have used to make Nickelodeon and MTV so popular into taking complex economic concepts and present them in a way that children can understand. Their work has massive potential and is a game changer in the world of politics.
When I write for pages and pages and pages what the importance of comic books and Star Wars in general are to modern culture I am thinking of people like John Papola and Josh Meyers. There are many people out there on the fence wondering what do to about the world they are witnessing. They listen to Glenn Beck, they read articles like the ones here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom—the fringe of thought–and they are measuring those messages against what they learn in comics, the media industry and realizing that they have power that is no longer centrally controlled in Hollywood. They do not have to lick the boots of some progressive scum bag in a palatial estate in Beverly Hills to gain access to studios—so they can work in the business. They are free to express their thoughts and feelings with the tools available to them—and they continue to work because they are good. Good people are always in demand—even if the industry would love to blacklist them.
Media moguls like Ted Turner two decades ago would have kept guys like John and Josh under their thumb just to work in the industry before a couple of Apple computers gave Emergent Order the ability to turn a bedroom into the kind of work space that used to take up an entire city block in Hollywood. Studio bosses could back then sit by a pool with playboy bunnies on each arm sniffing cocaine across a glass table and relish how they would help advance the kind of politics discussed in The Kronies video. They knew there were people who worked for their studios who did not adhere to progressive politics, or did not support Keynsian economics policies, but they did not care. They’d give one of those evil, maniacal laughs and declare to their blond bombshells—if they want to work—they’ll keep their mouths shut and do what we tell them. If they go “rogue” and start yapping their mouths on Entertainment Tonight, we’ll fire them.
Well, people like Steve Jobs freed these creative types and they are no longer under such thumbs. They are now free to use their imaginations any way they see fit—and they are beginning to emerge ruthlessly as they now realize that the shackles are gone from their arms and legs. What John Papola and Josh Meyers did in their Kronies cartoon short is equivalent to an entire economics text-book on Keynesian theory and the perils associated with it. That is where their idea here has power—because people who otherwise would not even try to understand Keynsian economics can now understand it as John and Josh made the concept so easy to understand that a child could wrap their mind around it. For politicians, big corrupt bankers, K-Street lobbyists and the many criminal elements dangling from those professions in the light of day—this is very bad news for them. They require that society be kept stupidly in the dark so they can work their deceit. The Kronies makes it all too obvious what is really going on in government—and that is a terrifying prospect to those attempting to hold on to the big Beverly Hills mansion with the two playboy bunnies, or the comb over politician and his mistresses in each city given to him by businessmen wanting to cut a deal who might otherwise sell their own daughters away in trade for a condo in the Bahamas. Or the union thug who is an acting communist entity spreading the message of solidarity and Keynesian economics as the European model of wealth management cheering on less personal freedom, oppressive, intrusive governments, and hairy man-hating European women.
The Kronies are signs of the times that are coming—and not a moment too soon. Somewhere deep in her grave Ayn Rand is smiling at the exploits of Emergent Order and their new cartoon parody, The Kronies. She wrote book after book after book trying to explain what these guys explained in a 2 minute 15 second video. And joining her undoubtedly is Steve Jobs who may have leaned to the political left, but deeply wanted this kind of individual power to go to people with a mind to use it. In the case of John and Josh, they certainly have—for the betterment of everyone who is touched by their work.
Rich Hoffman
February 3, 2014
Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom: A philosophy forged by the bullwhip
I remember the classes I took in my twenties at the Cincinnati cable access station learning how to edit video tape with all the style and flair of a nightly news broadcast. The editing room had dual tape feeders and a massive mixing board which made me feel like the power of my imagination was the only limit in communicating whatever I had on my mind. But there was a limit—you had to book the room by the hour—which was a real pain in the butt. I used that video room to help out the Ross Perot campaign, and the movement that came directly after called the Reform Party. Over the years that work has gotten lost in the thousands of home videos that I have of my family, and they certainly aren’t floating around on the internet because it hadn’t been invented yet—at least on the scale that we know it today. So I can state accurately that one of the greatest freedoms of our modern age is the ability to take that room full of complicated million dollar equipment and compress it down to the size of an iPad—and make it dramatically better. That is the age we are in. The imagination is the only real limit as much as government would like to think otherwise. We have all the power in the world to communicate whatever we want to whomever we want at any time of the day or night. With that said, I thought it was time to do an actual ad for this blog site of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom celebrating the heart of it—where it was born—in my back yard practicing with bullwhips.
The philosophy that I have utilized since the Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom inception is one that is discussed in the ad—one centered around my work with bullwhips. I have practiced for many hours over several decades with bullwhips and I always think a lot while doing it. Those thoughts translate to unique concepts and strategies in dealing with complicated problems and have helped me do things that seemed impossible to other people. I have attempted to teach executives how to run their businesses better with bullwhip classes so that they could understand what I do—that the whip is a minimalist effort exerted with great force—which is how business strategy should be conducted. Too many of these businessmen are concerned about their organization charts instead of the task of executing strategies and team building with those who can help them. The bullwhip is a lesson in how to take a small amount of force and turn it into something that can cut a pop can in two with just string and leather. The same force can be applied to the neck of a villain opening the arteries of the neck wide open and killing a man within seconds. Most people, particularly government try to implement strategy the way a gun works—with great force discharged up front—which quickly dissipates the further way the bullet gets from the muzzle. This is bad, especially with large organizations. By the time an intention is expressed, the velocity of that intention gets lost down the organizational chart until the force applied is next to nothing by the time it reaches its target. This is primarily why large companies like General Motors or the Federal Government fail when large bureaucracies stand between their intended strategies and the target of their implementation.
I have learned through the bullwhip that a small force applied in the right way can turn into a mammoth force by the time it reaches its target because of the tapered design. The limits are that you are restricted to a close range, but for a melee weapon it is far superior to a club, a knife, or a sword as the reach is greater, and the force applied is much less—and far more flexible. When wielding two whips at the same time there is no group of people who will be able to close around me with just their bare hands or melee weapons. Firearms are a bit trickier, but not all that difficult to thwart, easier than it might be thought otherwise. But these are the results of three decades of whip work. I have tried to teach people how to apply these tactics to their everyday lives but mostly—if they don’t learn to master a bullwhip—the lessons are lost to them.
Needless to say that I do apply these lessons to my life—many cannot understand how I do so much—at so many levels–because they don’t understand the bullwhip. Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom is just one of my daily tasks and the reason behind this site is very similar to using a bullwhip in a combat situation. I have witnessed the need to accomplish mammoth tasks on the liberty front—but applying a strategy to those tasks cannot be done properly using weapons of diminishing marginal return—where great effort is applied at the start, but it is greatly reduced by the time it reaches its target. I know people who have spent their entire lives on the liberty front fighting the good fight only to be continuously swept away by the big waves of machine politics, so I had to approach the problem differently. I think it is quite clear now after four years of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom what I have been up to. Go back and read the newspapers anywhere in the country and read the union talking points and compare them to today. I have not given a rat’s ass about reaching the masses—the everyday Joe’s and Mary’s. My targets have been very specific and the force of that momentum has had a great influence on the media, on radio conversation, on television, on the arts—and in politics. Now I haven’t been the only one—a lot of people have chipped away at that former power structure—but my job has been a support role to those troops on the ground while also striking at targeted cuts out there in the hidden areas—behind the curtain.
It was not an accident when I went on Doc Thompson’s radio show years ago and dared President Obama to put me on his insurgent list. I knew in doing it that The White House would read Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom every day to see if I was a threat. In reading every day, they are learning things whether or not they wish to. It forces their hands to learn what others are learning and takes them away from their game—just a bit. By seeing this action, others also dare to be so bold—and they add in mass a force sometimes more diligently applied overwhelming our foes. It is kind of a anti-Saul Alisnky—which is a very good thing.
The work at Lakota displayed on this site has forced a change in public education in general. That school wasted many hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting me to prevent the truth—and people have witnessed it. Currently Lakota is pinned down heavily. They know that anything they do will be heavily scrutinized here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom so they are very, very careful. This keeps them in check enormously. I don’t mind revealing that strategy now—because it is already too late. The next part of the strategy is already underway—and they can’t stop that either–and they know it. This has changed the dialogue in Columbus as many thousands of important people have learned about other education reformers through Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. In many ways those people put a lot more work into the effort than I do—most are committed to the task day and night—but the media has excluded them from the discussion and few people know about their web sites because they are blacklisted in the newspapers. I am very proud to have changed that dialogue.
Glenn Beck is doing some of the best work in the country right now with The Blaze—but being a completely online network it is being shunned by the media. Sites like Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, Freedomworks, and other outlets have helped that network get off the ground to what is now a powerhouse of information. I would call that strategy the way of the “whip,” a minimum up-front force applied to get explosive back-end results.
So it’s time to give Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom a bit of the credit it deserves not just as a work by me which started in my back yard, but for the very subtle path that it has paved behind the curtain the last couple of years. There are now more sites like it doing the same work and the effect is compounding nicely—just like how a bullwhip strikes a target. So given the tool availability that is out there so readily available now as opposed to back in the Reform Party days, it’s time to use them for “maximum” effect. And with that—I hope you enjoyed the first official ad for Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom and the intention I have to unfurl a strategy that has been coiled up for far too long—until just the right moment. That moment is now………………………………………..
Rich Hoffman
February 2, 2014
Saying “Yes”: ‘Ian up for Whatever’ Superbowl Bud Light commercial
Obviously, I have lived a colorful life. I have something to say about just about anything and everything and that ability was carved out of my life experience. Hey, it’s the Superbowl time of year—I love watching that game and the ceremonial nature that America dedicates to the event, so let’s have a little fun. I loved several commercials during the game but I particularly enjoyed the new Bud Light commercial “Ian Up for Whatever.” I knew from the moment that the young lady asked Ian–just a normal guy sitting in a sportsbar–that if she gave him a free Bud Light would be up for anything that followed–she was playing the role of the mythic goddess figures of the past and that Ian was in for an adventure. There have been many times when life has asked similar questions, and my typical reaction is “YES,” because you never know what kind of adventure comes next—but to get there you always have to say “YES.”
That’s the gist of things in Bud Light’s new “Ian Up For Whatever” Super Bowl commercial—a star-studded spectacle involving hidden cameras and wave after wave of celebrity cameos.
The true star of the commercial, however, is a man named “Ian” who finds himself swept up in a sequence of wild events bordering on the unimaginable, but not quite as crazy as the uninitiated might believe.
Things begin with Ian sitting alone at a bar. He’s approached by a pretty girl named Kelly, who introduces herself and takes a seat. Within moments, Ian’s new friend holds up a Bud Light and asks a single, somewhat ominous question.
“If I give this to you, are you up for whatever happens next?” Kelly asks.
“Uh, I think so,” Ian responds, obviously thinking that Kelly was coming on to him.
That’s how it starts—a night of limousines, twin parties and more Arnold Schwarzenegger ping-pong than ever conceived possible. Actually, that was my favorite part.
Ian receives a new jacket, courtesy of Friday Night Lights star Minka Kelly.
He also finds himself with comedian-musician Reggie Watts, who has been stuffed into a DJ booth inside the Hummer stretch limo designated to chauffeur Ian about New York for the evening.
The one prevailing tie in the commercial is the presence of Bud Light bottles, which Ian and company constantly have in hand. There’s also the omnipresent eye of the commercial’s directors and coordinators, who have the entire experience planned down to the moment and wired for video and sound.
In all, “Ian Up For Whatever” is an impressive feat of planning and videography. Any number of mishaps could’ve turned this commercial into a nightmare, but judging by the final product, things went rather swimmingly.
I could tell a number of stories where similar things have happened to me. It is often surprising how a willingness for adventure can pave the way for the unfathomable. Those events may not happen quite in the same way as Ian’s experience—and they may not involve such New York cultural pleasure, but they are often as outrageous and cryptically elusive to the mind of a planned individual. The human spirit often carries events beyond conception, and the real magic of life is often beyond those borders. I have been to such places many times—so much that nothing would shock me now. Where Ian was amazed, I would have been much more flat lined. The limo would not have surprised me, playing “baby tennis” with Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t have been strange or finding oneself onstage with a major music group, relative to my personal life. Crazy things do happen, and they often start with the word “Yes.”
A good lesson from that commercial is to say “yes,” a bit more often. When your boss places before you a tough challenge……………..say, “yes.” You’d be surprised what might happen. When your car starts sputtering because you are almost out of gas, say “yes” and keep the petal depressed. See what happens when you run out of fuel a mile short of a gas station. Many adventures are likely to transpire. When you pass by a restaurant that strikes your interest, say “yes” and pull in and try it out. Stepping out of a routine can be very exciting. Say “yes” more often and let adventure into your life, and you will discover that Ian’s experience is not that unique.
Good things don’t always happen, but I still say yes to many things, because I love adventure. It is adventure that has filled my mind with so many opinions, and given voice to so many topics. I have a story for everything when I talk to younger people because in my past I have said “yes” to many outrageous adventures even the ones that appeared to be kamikaze runs. I always figured I was cleaver enough to avoid death, and I have been right more times than chance can take credit for.
Because of those adventures I love my life. I love every day of it and I don’t have regrets. Even bad decisions were part of the “saying yes” process, and the adventures that followed have led to tremendous amounts of experience which translates to personal wisdom. In this life, wisdom is capital—more powerful capital than gold, or the perceived values of finance. Wisdom can gain finances, but finances cannot gain wisdom. Wisdom is by far more valuable, and wisdom can only be obtained by living life—and to live life, you have to “say yes,” to things.
A guy who reads here a lot will recognize this story immediately but I remember a trip to Panama City with him which nearly mirrored this Bud Light commercial. It started by “saying yes” to a cold March evening, a complicated engineering problem, and a political stalemate that needed to be broken loose. It ended hours later over a thousand miles away with me playing football on a beach after jumping off a pier from about 25 feet and breaking my ankle in the sand. I wrapped the ankle and continued playing football anyway under the moonlight next to the ocean. We slept with a tent half constructed next to a harbor, and solved our problem over breakfast at a Burger King. We returned to Cincinnati within 48 hours of leaving for our next meeting and solved all our problems with a fresh perspective. Adventure is good for building wisdom.
There are hundreds of those types of stories, but most don’t involve the kind of elements seen in that Bud Light commercial. The Panama City one did, which is the reason for the reference. But all such adventures lead to the ability to have wisdom—something young people don’t have until it is developed. At the end of his adventure in the Bud Light commercial Ian was wiser than was when he simply agreed to a girl in a bar to accept whatever happened next. Adventure happens all the time to many people, and adventure builds wisdom—but before either can be obtained a person has to be willing to “say yes.” Lucky for Ian, he did. But you too Dear Reader can experience adventure in the strangest places and times. All you have to do is, “say yes.
Rich Hoffman
February 1, 2014
The Grand Fortissimo of Star Wars: Episode 7, Expanded Universe, and the Abeloth
What does Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, and Seth McFarlane all have in common even though they are all political commentators and satirists from polar opposites—a rather intense love of Star Wars that often comes out in their work. Star Wars as I have said many times has the ability to reach beyond the rhetoric of modern politics and perspective and speak to the heart of very complicated matters. I have never known of anything like it and have enjoyed the constant DAILY musings about the new film, Episode 7 coming out in 2015. Every single day there is a new story on the internet speculating about the making of that film and I have really enjoyed the debates about whether or not the Expanded Universe will be included into the new films. There is much wonderment about how much Disney and J.J. Abrams will want to make their imprint on the new saga. The belief as of now is that these new creative interests would pick and chose from the many comics, novels, and other material created before them constituting the “expanded universe” and would change names and places to suit their own input. Well, I think people who believe those kinds of things are intensely wrong as there is a cool dude who is the current protector of the intellectual Star Wars universe named Pablo Hidalgo working with Abrams and Disney as he has for years with dozens of writers and game designers to keep the story continuity of the massive Star Wars saga consistent.
My intent with this article is not to give away spoilers for the next film, or to give away details of the massive volume of books from the last thirty Star Wars novels, many of which were New York Times Best Sellers. We are not talking about a silly bit of escapist fantasy, but many of these novels are very series explorations into political science, philosophy, and psychology. For instance in the book Ascension written by Christie Golden an ancient being 100,000 years old named Abeloth seeks to make a power play against the entire galaxy while a group of political strategist look to resurrect the Empire of old by provoking a slavery revolt to create a crises for the Republic overwhelming their resources allowing the Empire to make a move. Meanwhile a group of ancient Sith are teaming up with the Abeloth to return their dominance against the long hated Jedi. The story reads like something out of a Saul Alinsky manual, but what’s different is that there is context in a story to apply the meanings too, which makes the concept of such betrayal digestible. When Ascension was released a few years ago it was #7 on the New York Times Best Seller list.
When the novel Lockdown, which came out this past week hit the shelves at our local book store my wife rushed out to snag up her copy. The book was not nestled in the distant corner hidden shamefully where nobody would see it—it was right out in front next to the front door so it was the first thing customers would see when they arrived. Stacks of them were there right next to Glenn Beck’s newest book Miracles and Massacres. My wife consumes these Star Wars books in about 3 to 4 days on average devouring them with great intensity—and she’s certainly not alone. In our house, we have well over 200 Star Wars novels, some of them junior readers, but at least 160 of them were written for adult audiences and feature a very complicated and intricate history from the Star Wars universe.
I feel extremely confident that Disney and Abrams with all their prudence would be foolish to ruin what Lucasfilm has spent decades building—but rather would tap into this vast mythology from the business side preserving the creative input by hundreds of individual minds guided to the same spot by George Lucas. Lucas provided the canvas for which many, many people painted a very elaborate picture of a vast story that explores the nature of politics, life after death, and the fundamentals of human interaction. I do not believe for a second that Disney would be so foolish as to disrupt this process. Rather, I believe with the same deductive reasoning that I have predicted many actual truths in the world here at this site of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, that it is the many speculations of established thought that are wrong. The new Star Wars films will pick up shortly after the novel Crucible just over 45 years after the original Star Wars film A New Hope. I believe that the villains will not be a resurrection of Darth Vader, or even the Emperor this time, but will center on instead on the story of Abeloth, the void in the galaxy left by the destruction of a place called Center Point Station, and events that took nearly 70 years prior when Anakin Skywalker refused to play his role in becoming a Keeper of the Balance upon solicitation by the Ones.
Disney has an opportunity through the intense work of Lucasfilm to create perhaps the most potent mythology ever fashioned by human minds dwarfing all the Greek myths, the symposiums of oriental culture, Hindu legacies, and Andes folktales. If Disney taps into fully the work done by the Expanded Universe there will be a tremendous wave of culture that will hit the current empty vessels of civilization with the force of a tsunami, only it won’t be a destructive force—but a positive, creative one. There will be nothing like it in the works of mankind. I’m as sure of it as the sun shines during the day and the stars can be seen at night. It is a certainty. The story of Abeloth is one that has the potential to eclipse the threat of the Emperor from the previous films and ties all these Star Wars stories into a giant complex tapestry of interwoven stories that make bold attempts to dig at the heart of evil and will sufficiently wrap up the entire point into a unifying principle worthy of all the hard work done for so many years by so many people. Only a villain of such an epic—timeless scope has the ability to justify more Star Wars films. Disney will then be free to make television adaption’s of all the novels bringing all the story lines leading into Episode 7 providing content for decades further that will plaster itself to the minds of millions. Disney will obtain a very needed revenue stream from the Expanded Universe—thousands of additional Star Wars figures instead of just hundreds, and merchandising that will eclipse the sales of all their current efforts. This will make Star Wars the most massive, and valuable cultural phenomena ever known. Finally, the Jedi and the Sith will have to decide how to unite after many thousands of years of war bringing the force into sharp focus for the first time in anyone’s memory fulfilling the attempt by the Ones to have that balance restored by Luke’s father Anakin.
I have not been shy, I am a raving lunatic when it comes to the latest Star Wars X-Wing Minatures game and the announcement of the Rebel Transport. CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS THING! Keith Ryan Kappel is a writer and employee at Fantasy Flight Games who makes X-Wing Miniatures and he recently had a posting at the official Star Wars website telling the complicated history of Centerpoint Station which was destroyed by Jacen Solo. That act by Jacen caused the rise of the Abeloth which I believe will be the focus of the new Star Wars films as the premier villain. Keith from his perspective is in a position to know things—and this article on Centerpoint Station and the Abeloth has some importance that should put things to rest and ease the minds of millions of Star Wars fans. Episode 7 and beyond won’t be about Darth Vader, the Emperor, or even a bunch of Stormtroopers. It will be about transcendence beyond pairs of opposites and will be extremely powerful philosophically. It will accomplish what no religion in the world has ever thought possible, it will unite the minds of mankind on planet earth in a way nothing else has ever been able to—and it will be very important, as well as entertaining. So enjoy Keith’s insight and history shown below and use the link at the end to visit the original article.
Throughout galactic history, Centerpoint Station has been many things to many beings. For the Killik hives, it was a religious duty. To cosmic threats, it was a prison. Colonists called it home, while criminals called it good for business. Governments have viewed it as a doomsday device, while Jedi thought it as a threat to galactic peace. For the Corellians, its power represented true independence. Centerpoint has been all of these things and more.
Centerpoint Station, the most powerful force in the galaxy, second only to the power of the Force itself, was created in February 1995 by legendary science fiction author Roger Macbride Allen for his Corellian trilogy series of novels for Bantam Spectra. The station’s power dwarfed that of previous superweapons and left an impression on fans, paving the way for the station’s return as both a setting and superweapon in future novels and role-playing games. This is its story.
(Note, there are SPOILERS ahead if you have not yet read the Fate of the Jedi book series.)
Centerpoint Station is a massive 100 kilometer sphere with a pair of thick 125 kilometer poles at either end. The station is situated in the Corellian System, and sits at the exact barycenter between the planets Talus and Tralus. Xenoarcheologists have dated parts of the station at over 100,000 years old, making it four times older than the earliest known incarnation of the Galactic Republic. The purpose and mystery behind its construction has only recently been uncovered.
The Killik hives that constructed Centerpoint Station called it Qolaraloq, or The World Puller. However, the Killiks did not design the station, they were working on behalf of two Celestial architects known as the Son and Daughter of Mortis. The purpose of the station was to create a tractor beam analogue powerful enough to move planets, stars, and even black holes from across the galaxy. To accomplish this feat, the Killiks first constructed Centerpoint Station in orbit around Corel, a star with only two outlier planets.
At the same time, other Killik hives built planetary repulsors on habitable worlds. When construction was complete, Centerpoint dragged these worlds through hyperspace with its advanced tractor beam to create the Corellian System. Centerpoint itself, amplified by the additional planetary repulsors, had enough raw power enough to move black holes throughout the galaxy.
The architects had a stepmother of sorts named Abeloth, a being similar, but not quite as powerful as the Celestials. Unfortunately, Abeloth had been driven mad in a bid for power, and for the good of the galaxy, would have to be imprisoned. Since no known prison could hold beings of the architects’ power, the Son and Daughter were forced to construct one. Centerpoint Station was to be the tool that built the prison.
Centerpoint dragged dozens of black holes into a precise formation known today as the Maw Cluster near Kessel. The black holes blockaded Abeloth in exile, where she remained imprisoned for tens of thousands of years as the Architects faded from power and civilizations rose and fell.
Over millennia, the function and importance of Centerpoint Station became lost to history. By the time of the Clone Wars, any information regarding the station’s origins or function were unknown, except that the station itself was approximately 100,000 years old. While many researchers and locals had theories, most of the galaxy gave Centerpoint no thought at all. During the fledgling Republic, Centerpoint became a staging area for colonists boarding generation ships. Later, those supporting the colonization industry simply stayed.
Centerpoint itself is a part of the Federation of Double Worlds of Talus and Tralus, and is subject to their laws and taxes. The station gets by largely on trade and tourism, with additional funds generated from scientific research. Due to the station’s immense size, only a fraction is mapped or even explored, and countless orphans, homeless, and undocumented beings eke out a meager existence on Centerpoint.
The biggest area on Centerpoint Station is Hollowtown, a massive, 60-kilometer-wide spherical void at the center of the station. Hollowtown contains tourist attractions, lavish estates, and countless farms and ranches to feed the station. It is also home to two artificial mountain ranges known as the Northern and Southern Conical Mountains. Between the two mountain ranges lies the mysterious Glowpoint, a small artificial sun that lights Hollowtown at all times.
The remaining decks in the spherical portion of the station are known as the Shells, because of the way each layer outward from Hollowtown encases the next like an eggshell. These decks contain a number of living quarters, but are largely unexplored. The space where the spherical center joins either pole contains massive docking bays where most trade occurs. The northern pole contains most administrative offices and a number of university and private led research projects, while the southern pole is believed abandoned, but occupied by a growing criminal element.
The power of Centerpoint Station was rediscovered in 18 ABY by a distant cousin of Han Solo, Thrackan Sal-Solo, who was working with the Sacorrian Triad. In a scheme known as the Starbuster Plot, the Triad, after a test-firing in a vacant system to ensure the station worked, held the galaxy ransom. An unfortunate side effect of the test-firing was the unexpected consequences to Hollowtown. When the weapon switched on, the Glowpoint swelled in size, incinerating all Hollowtown’s inhabitants instantly. The entire void was actually a combustion chamber to power the hyperspace tractor beam. Centerpoint Security immediately evacuated the rest of the station, leaving the station under the control of the Triad.
The Starbuster Plot was eventually foiled by Han Solo and Princess Leia’s children, particularly Anakin Solo, who bonded with Centerpoint Station’s command center, and locked everyone else out of the system. The station was firmly under the control of the new Corellian government, which was allied with the New Republic. During the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, it was proposed that Centerpoint be used as a weapon against the invaders. Thrackan Sal-Solo was brought in by the Corellian government to get the weapon operational. Eventually, after enlisting the help of Anakin Solo’s help, he did just that. However, firing the weapon during the Battle of Fondor ensured the young Jedi would never help him again, as the shot destroyed as many Hapan ships as it did Vong.
Following Anakin Solo’s death a short time later, Sal-Solo set himself to the task of rearming the station’s hyperspace tractor beam by creating an advanced droid using Anakin’s genetic material. Over a decade of work paid off, and Sal-Solo once again held the trigger to the galaxy’s most lethal weapon. With Centerpoint Station firmly within its control, the Corellian System declared its independence.”
Reactivating the most dangerous artifact in the known galaxy sparked a new galactic civil war, as the Republic sought to once again remove Centerpoint Station from being the ultimate power in the universe. The Jedi decided enough was enough, and sent a strike team, who were able to sabotage the targeting computer so Centerpoint would always target itself if fired. The slicing subroutines worked, and moments later, while trying to destroy Coruscant, the station imploded in on itself, ending the threat posed by Celestial power in mortal hands forever.
Abeloth was a being created as a servant by the three Celestials: the Father, the Daughter, and the Son. In time, Abeloth won the Father’s heart, and became known as the Mother. Nowhere near as powerful as the other members of her new family, and destined to die in what would be an eyeblink for them, Abeloth drank from the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge — both forbidden acts — in hopes it would make her a Celestial.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
While Abeloth did become a long-lived creature of immense power, it also corrupted her, changing her into something dark and covetous. When she was found out, the Celestials contracted the Killiks of Alderaan to construct a specialized prison of their own design for Abeloth. This prison, known as the Maw, was built by Centerpoint Station. For 100,000 years she languished in her prison, angry, terrified, and worst of all, alone.
When Centerpoint Station was destroyed in 40 ABY, it created a fissure in the Maw that allowed Abeloth to reach out into the galaxy through the Force. This led to her escape and subsequent rise to control the Galactic Federation of Free Worlds. Abeloth encountered Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker a number of times during her escape and rise to power, and she bested him handily each time. Finally, they fought on Sinkhole Station on a mental plane of the Force, where she was ultimately defeated. However, with no way to truly kill or imprison her, it is only a matter of time before she returns.
A distant cousin to famous smuggler Han Solo, Thrackan Sal-Solo was born on Tralus, and raised believing he was of an ancient royal Corellian bloodline. The two lived together a short time, cultivating a murderous hatred of each other before Thrackan betrayed Han, selling him back into slavery with pirates. Thrackan believed he was better than Han, or anyone, thanks to his privileged upbringing. This sense of entitlement would time and time again prove his undoing.
Two years after the Battle of Yavin, Sal-Solo achieved the position of Deputy to the Diktat as an Imperial administrator, but still felt he walked in the shadow of his now infamous cousin. Thrackan disappeared after the Empire was dealt a crippling blow at Endor, and formed a terrorist organization allied with criminal syndicates. By 18 ABY Thrackan gained control of Centerpoint Station, with full knowledge of its potential destructive power. Thrackan saw his chance and declared himself Diktat, but was foiled by Han Solo and his children. Thrackan was arrested, tried, and incarcerated.
After eight years in prison, Sal-Solo was released and put in charge of Centerpoint Station to use it against the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. When he used the station against the Vong, despite the massive friendly casualties, he became an overnight hero, which led to his election as Governor-General of the Corellian System a year later. Thrackan finally had everything he had ever wanted, but he didn’t get to enjoy it long. He was tried for treason after the war, but after winning his freedom, he manipulated his way into being Corellia’s Head of State.
It wasn’t long before Sal-Solo’s double-dealing and obsession with a free and powerful Corellia under the protection of an active Centerpoint Station drove the galaxy to civil war. Just after allying himself with Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiya, Thrackan was assassinated by bounty hunters Mirta Gev, Boba Fett, and Han Solo.
Special thanks to Ed Erdelac, Ryan Brooks, and Sam Stewart.
Want more Centerpoint Station? Pick up Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: Suns of Fortune, with contributing author Keith Ryan Kappel. Available now at your friendly local game store !
Sources
The Corellian Trilogy: Ambush at Corellia\
The Corellian Trilogy: Assault at Selonia
The Corellian Trilogy: Showdown at Centerpoint
Star Wars: The Old Republic Codex Entry
New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
Legacy of the Force: Betrayal
Legacy of the Force: Exile
Legacy of the Force: Fury
Cracken’s Threat Dossier
The New Jedi Order Sourcebook
The Official Star Wars Fact File 37
The New Essential Chronology
Rebellion Era Campaign Guide
The Essential Atlas
Star Wars Saga Edition: Galaxy at War
Star Wars Saga Edition: The Unknown Regions
Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: Suns of Fortune
AUTHOR BIO
Keith Ryan Kappel is a freelance writer working for Fantasy Flight Games’Star Wars line of role playing games, and was a credited playtester on the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG line. As a Star Wars fan, Keith co-founded, wrote, and edited for FandomComics.com from 2005-2012, where he has written hundreds of pages of Star Wars fan comic and RPG material. A long time ago, Keith was also an intelligence specialist at Naval Space Command for the United States Navy. Keith can be found at KRKappel.com, Facebook, and Twitter.
I make a point to identify things to you dear Reader that is way out ahead of the curve. In four years you will read this and wonder how I knew all these things. Even though they may seem to be irrelevant trivia from fantasy, this article is far from that. The people who are shaping our society currently love Star Wars. It doesn’t matter if it’s Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart or the creator of the Family Guy cartoon on Fox—Star Wars has power and that power will shape the political and economic landscape of tomorrow. Trust me………..it will. Dear Reader, take this information and prepare yourself for that point in time, and be ready. Most of the speculation from modern-day commentators who work for entertainment are not aware of what is about to happen. They cannot see the big picture that has been taking place at Skywalker Ranch in California since the early 1980s. There is a power here that can shatter the way everything is viewed today—especially politically—and when that happens, good minds will need to be available to provide guidance to the millions upon millions who find themselves discombobulated and disenfranchised in need to rebuild their minds properly. The key is not so much how things were done in the past, but in how those events point to the future and come together in a grand fortissimo. And when that fortissimo reaches our senses, we must conduct ourselves accordingly—and without hesitation.
How do I know all this……………..I have read all the books, but more than that, I have intensely studied Joseph Campbell, who also taught George Lucas. I know exactly where this is going. And I am excited about getting there! Disney will make a lot of money, and they will do good things with that money. But more than that, society will receive insight where before there was only confusion and darkness—except for those who have taken the time to read all those fantastic Star Wars novels. They already know, and soon—so will everyone else.
Rich Hoffman
January 31, 2014
The Mist of an American Republic: Emperor Obama’s State of the Union
The State of the Union speech was such a comedy this year—increasingly made so incrementally over time—that there was very little of it that I took seriously. The most comic parts of it are when for the whole previous year both political sides yapped negatively about each other with much rhetoric and fanfare—yet when the president arrived all those idiots from both sides lined up to shake his hand and get his autograph. When Obama finally arrived at the podium to stand in front of vice president Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner, everyone shook hands politely and with great respect before Obama basically announced himself Emperor of America. It was hilarious because the politicians were all talk spewing forth criticisms like a Pro Wrestler. But behind the scenes, which is what the State of the Union is really all about—they are friends. They are all on the same team. They are all part of the Washington D.C. beltway and are divorced from the reality of the main streets of America. They are power-hungry, unethical, and more or less scum bags. Out of all the coverage I heard about the State of the Union, only The Blaze Radio Network articulated my feelings accurately. Listen to Doc Thompson’s hilarious broadcast covering the day after the State of the Union Address. It’s well worth the time. Grab a snack, turn off the television, and turn this broadcast on in the background and enjoy the next couple of hours.
Glenn Beck, who runs The Blaze had even more fun to share about his impressions of the State of the Union. I’m not the only one who makes frequent comparisons to the fictional film Star Wars these days—Beck saw much what I did in Obama’s speech. Obama might as well have been Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars series. I remember when the film Revenge of the Sith hit theaters, many film critics from the left thought that the primary saga villain reflected George W. Bush’s constant lusting to start wars so to fill the pockets of Halliburton. That president was the one who brought us The Department of Homeland Security, and paved the way for all the NSA abuses we see today. But Obama far surpassed Bush with his 2014 State of the Union speech which was almost word for word what was said by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith. Obama surely wasn’t even intending to copy the Star Wars villain—yet he did regardless. Obama’s power grab was driven by human innate desire—the desire to acquire power, and isn’t specific to Obama—but the people who put Obama in power. That was the point of the Star Wars films, and in the case of American politics on both political sides, fantasy reflects reality all too well. Watch Beck’s radio coverage on this topic.
The idiots looking for Obama’s autograph slobbering over themselves to shake the hand of the president knowing full well that the guy was planning to rule with Executive Orders paints the whole picture accurately. These guys are scum, they are addicted to power, and they are out to hurt us all. They aren’t legislating on behalf of the American people. They are a joke—and they really think so little of us that they will talk bad about the president to his face playing the media angle representing their side—then they turn around and slobber all over him hoping Obama rubs up against them in the hallway so they can die happy soldiers of solidarity.
The only–and I mean, only media outlet that even attempted to cover main street USA’s American perspective was The Blaze specifically Doc Thompson and Glenn Beck. Obama really thinks he’s a ruler—and his fellow politicians are perfectly willing to play the role. They are selling us out—every one of them. Every idiot who stood in line to shake the hand of an American Emperor contributed to the cause.
If I were there would I have shaken the President’s hand? I knew you were going to ask that question dear reader…………F**K NO! I might have politely shunned him and if he tried to force his hand into mine, I would have slapped it away. If I were invited to The White House under this president, I would not go—under any circumstances. I certainly would not stand in line to “touch” the dude.
This folly is not the fault of President Obama. It is a failure of the human condition, the desire to be led about and ruled which comes to us from the distant past when mankind was ruled over by a village chief who designated who made fires, who hunted for food, who had babies and when, and who would be sacrificed to the sun in order to keep it burning in the sky. One would hope that after several hundred thousand years of evolution the human being would have migrated away from such primitive thinking—but we haven’t. The slack-jawed idiots of Congress, the wishy-washy Senator, and the many guests drooling from the gallery were mostly enamored by the grace of America’s symbol of an Emperor—the one who rules them all. Very, very few of the people present were there to defend the Republic of America. Those who have defended America have been label radicals, nut-cases, and right-winged extremists by those who desire to look at Obama as the embodiment of an American Emperor.
Even Bill O’Reilly from Fox News is ga-ga over Obama. He’s actually proud that he is conducting the pre-Superbowl interview with Emperor Obama. Over the last couple of weeks O’Reilly came out in favor of Obama’s minimum wage increase of $10.10 an hour. That should make the pre-interview handshake more pleasant between O’Reilly and Obama. Both guys are wealthy beyond comprehension and are clearly out of touch. O’Reilly doesn’t care where the money comes from for the small business person. He doesn’t care that all the many workers who were making $10 an hour previously will suddenly want $12 and $13 an hour for the same work because now the minimum wage is $10 driving up all wages with inflationary value all over the country. He’s just another sell-out. I still watch him—occasionally he does some good reporting–about as good as any media outlet in the mainstream does these days, but he’s still too far to the left for me.
The White House is just a building with a bunch of bricks in it. I’ve been there and was not impressed. It is a symbol of an American Republic that no longer exists—it is a ghost of its former self and looters like Obama and most of the modern-day politicians are simply using that ghost to advance their lust for power. The White House is not sacred, it is not magical, and it is not enchanting. It is just a building and the people in it are flawed human beings corrupted by the imperfections of the flesh. They are small minded—lackluster collectivists weakened by an evolution of mankind which started in villages and is still functioning from those primal yearnings. The same dust-covered tribes of hunters and gatherers who spent all their waking moments trying to appease the king or chieftain sacrificing goats to the gods of the sun and moon are the same damn fools standing in the aisle of Congress wanting to shake the hand of a puppet in Obama. The whole event was just a ceremony designed to make human beings feel “safe.” To know that their place in the universe is protected by some symbol of authority—in this case it’s Obama. In the past it was Bush, Clinton, and Reagan. In the future it will be more watered down feel-good candidates even more useless and ceremonial as human evolution regresses further year by year until the whole thing collapses.
The humor of the situation is the declaration of dictatorship that completely went over the heads of all present—except those with a mind to notice. It was for me the funniest State of the Union yet. It was like watching Hulk Hogan standing in the center of a ring challenging all comers to a battle to the death—but knowing that off the stage, all the participants were making plans to go out to dinner and roll in the wealth of their falsehoods. Taken in that context, the entire event was quite funny—and entertaining—where it used to be just sad. There was no sadness this time—because I no longer even take it serious. It’s just entertainment by actors who aren’t even good—just cheesy marionettes of global interest.
Thank goodness yet again for The Blaze and blog sites who covered the situation for what it really was……………a travesty of justice cowering in the ghost-like mist of an American Republic.
Rich Hoffman
January 30, 2014
Payton Manning’s Remarkable Comeback Story: Why the FDA is against stem cell research
For the Superbowl this year, even though I like and admire both teams, the defense of the Seattle Seahawks, and the offense of Payton Manning on the Broncos—it is the Broncos that I will be rooting for. During the football year of 2011, Manning was forced to sit out the entire year and watch from the booth in Indianapolis as his football career appeared to be over with a neck injury that appeared irreparable. Yet Manning, with the same resiliency he shows in all of his football games was determined to never say die even when the odds were very much against him. He calmly made arrangements to have his injury fixed with stem cells returning a year later to a new team with the Denver Broncos having a strong season. The very next year, he has taken that franchise to the Superbowl—a feat they would not have achieved without him. Payton Manning singlehandedly cared the team on his back and with leadership that is very unique. He took a team that would otherwise be average—to the most coveted sports event of the entire year—a Superbowl.
There was a wonderful article on this stem cell procedure which I thought was of interest to my readers here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. As my frequent readers know, I am very excited about the cures for cancer, the regenerative growth technology that is happening in the medical industry, and other exciting developments in stem cell research that are currently underway. If Manning had followed the rules in The United States dictated by the FDA, Payton would have found his NFL career over two years ago. He would not be playing in a Superbowl, and Denver would still be struggling to find an identity after their experiments with Tim Tebow.
The entirety of that article can be found at the end of this article for cross-reference but the gist of it is this–Peyton Manning, first injured his neck in a game against the Washington Redskins on October 22nd, 2006 after his helmet was ripped off by Andre Carter. Manning played relatively pain-free the next few years but reinjured the neck in 2010 and soon found himself without his characteristic arm strength. Ultimately, Manning decided to go under the knife in May of 2011 to have surgery on a herniated disk that was thought to cause the pain and weakness. In the weeks following the operation, the NFL’s most marketable player appeared to be on the road to recovery1 but he suffered another setback in the summer of 2011 necessitating a second, far more serious operation: cervical spinal fusion.2 But before he had the procedure, Peyton Manning did something truly bizarre.
Shortly before the spinal fusion, Manning travelled to Europe to have stem cells harvested from his fat tissue so they could be injected into his injured neck. Upon learning of this unusual procedure, I had two questions: 1) Why did he do this? and 2) Why was it done in Europe?
Stem cells are those undifferentiated cells that, like Daniel Day-Lewis, can seemingly turn into anything. They can be harvested from bone marrow, the umbilical cord, blood, or fat tissue – plucking them from fat happens to be technically easy and relatively painless – and through the secretion of growth factors can aid in cartilage and bone regeneration. There’s no definitive evidence that stem cell injections actually work for the kind of neck injury Peyton Manning had, so when it was leaked that the quarterback had undergone the procedure, there were more than a few skeptics.
A professor of bioethics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine called Manning’s decision “an act of desperation” and Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, director of the stem cell program at the University of California, San Diego said, “It is impossible to know whether the ‘treatment’ will make Manning better or worse or merely financially poorer.”
Well, at age 37, Peyton Manning just had the best season for a quarterback in the history of the NFL. But was it because of the stem cells or in spite of them or unrelated entirely? It’s still unclear. Proponents of the procedure call Manning a poster child for stem cell therapy, while critics say he required a subsequent neck operation precisely because the stem cells didn’t work. (Manning has not commented.) While that argument plays out, a more interesting question remains: Why did Manning have to go to Europe for the procedure? The answer has to do with the FDA and how one defines risk.
A patient can either be consented individually (by signing a form, typically) for a medical procedure—like neck surgery—or exposed to an unconsented risk where regulatory assurances are already in place, like the FDA ensuring that your painkiller is potent, safe, and pure. But where do stem cell injections fall on the consent/risk spectrum? Is the injection of your own cells more like having a surgical procedure or more like taking a drug? Because there is no mass production or distribution involved, many doctors think the risk of stem cell injections is more like having surgery; it can only be estimated by the clinician who is providing the therapy, and it is up to the patient to weigh and ultimately accept the risk and provide consent. The FDA disagreed with this line or reasoning and in 2006 ruled that a patient’s own cells should be subject to the same regulation as mass-produced drugs. Peyton’s stem cells were essentially no different from a medication you’d pick up at the pharmacy.
The outcry from medical organizations was swift, and included critical statements from the American Red Cross and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which objected, “in the strongest terms to FDA’s proposed regulation of stem cell transplants. This misguided proposal is unnecessary…and exceeds FDA’s legal authority…stem cell transplants are medical procedures. Their use is the practice of medicine, not the manufacturing of a drug as FDA asserts.”
The FDA’s ruling meant Peyton’s own stem cells fell under the purview of the FDA and were suddenly wrapped in red tape. To avoid any possible bureaucratic delay, he simply went to Europe to have the procedure done there. Manning didn’t have time to wait for the FDA or more testing of the procedure, he needed to get back on the field before he was too old. Now the presumptive MVP may be headed for the Super Bowl after a record-setting season. Was it because of the stem cells? Who knows, but the likelihood is that many more people—not just pro athletes, but weekend warriors—will be wanting to go to Europe to have this done, and Peyton won’t just be the face of junk pizza and DirecTV, but of an unproven medical procedure and skirting FDA regulation abroad.
http://regressing.deadspin.com/what-the-hell-did-peyton-manning-inject-into-his-neck-1502352128
The American government is killing people because of their intense regulations and causing many millions of others to be ill when they don’t need to be. The Peyton Manning story should be a lesson to us all of what kind of medical potential exists, but aren’t options because they threaten the power of the pharmaceutical lobby. As the world watches Peyton Manning in the Superbowl finalize a 2013 season remember that Manning would not be able to play that game if he had followed the recommendations of the American government and the ridiculous rules of the FDA. Look at your own aches and pains and remember the loved ones who painfully left your life through death and illness and answer your own question………………………..why?
The answer is because the FDA wants people sick—so they can stay relevant and keep everyone buying drugs at a pharmacy protecting the drug companies. The option of stem cell research threatens those drug companies by making it so that people could be healthy, instead of always sick. There is more money to be made off sick people than healthy ones.
For all those reasons……………….I am rooting for Payton Manning…………….one more time.
Rich Hoffman
January 29, 2014
Dictator Obama’s Executive Orders: Wealth redistribution on a global scale
Dictator Obama with all his threats of using Executive Orders to bypass congress leading up to his State of the Union speech made one of the most reckless proposals a sitting president ever made. Obama proposed a mandatory minimum wage hike for all employees involved with government contracts and urged all companies everywhere no matter of economic ability to adhere to a minimum wage of $10.10. To the everyday person, more money for the same work sounds appealing—but those people have never struggled to collect payable accounts to make a payroll. What this president has just proposed is a mandatory decimation on labor margins that while have a devastating impact on the flow of business. Now, Obama has no idea why his dumb idea will be such a travesty. He thinks he’s helping people. But for a sitting president who wants to create jobs—he is clearly out of his mind—he’s just proposed a policy that will destroy them.
Of course the President and his advisers are proposing this hike in the minimum wage because of their belief in socialism. They don’t believe that the “greedy” business owner has a “right” to the profits of their endeavors. They believe that all people from the simple laborer to the CEO are “equal.” They believe that everyone should show up for work each day and play their roles at their places of business, take their pay at the end of the week, and live their “middle-class” lives under the rule of people like Obama and his government bureaucrats. But—their view of the world is severally flawed because it does not incorporate the most important ingredient into hiring a staff—potential.
Not all employees are equal. Some are better than others, and not all people are worth the same money. It doesn’t matter if people are white, black, purple, yellow, green males females or some combination in between—what does matter is whether or not employees have gumption—drive—and a sense of quality in their lives. The worker who makes silly fart jokes during an entire shift is not worth the same amount of pay as the worker who is always looking to stay busy and pushing themselves to advance by learning more. The worker who does not have the personal ambition to try to be a better person is not worth the same as the person who tries every day to go to bed at night better than they were when they woke up.
Obama’s minimum wage increase with the stroke of an Executive Order—bypassing congress ignores this basic premise in hiring practices and makes American productivity less competitive because the weak and un-ambitious are now getting a raise which they don’t deserve. This incentivizes companies who might consider doing business in America to take their endeavor to India, China or Malaysia where employees will work for very little money-making doing business in those countries much more appealing than in The United States.
Obama has artificially created value with his stupid little pin and his foreign Jakarta education that will guarantee wealth redistribution not from the rich and the poor in America but from The United States to third world countries many of them plagued by socialism and communism. China is a communist country………..in spite of Hong Kong being the freest city on earth. By forcing companies to push back against this minimum wage law, Obama wants those companies to relocate to poor economic regions where cheap labor resides. Isn’t it obvious? Government cannot create value—or jobs, yet Obama’s reckless attempt in spite of the good intentions are just further ignorance of his economic ignorance. Where value is created artificially the bad are rewarded while the good are penalized. The good is the productive worker, or the actual job creator. The bad is the lackluster human being who just wants to do the minimum in life, get their pay check, and buy a six-pack of beer. Many of those same stupid people are currently paying more taxes than they need to on their IRS forms so that they can get a $3000 check back in the spring because they are incapable of saving money. As they file their taxes they already have their money spent planning vacations, new computer purchases, and fancy dinners. Once the money is spent by May they will be broke until the following year waiting for their tax returns once again. Those are the dumb asses who will benefit from the minimum wage increase—not the frugal, diligent worker who may have worked hard every day for years and is currently making $10 to $11 an hour on a general labor position. Now Obama has given the less than efficient worker an equal status forcing an employer to decrease their margins—which many won’t be able to do—it will be easier to just take their operation out of America where labor is cheaper.
When the terrorists of 9/11 attacked the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001, they intended to attack America’s symbol of economic power. They hoped to bring down the American economy—and for the most part their act was successful. America handcuffed themselves in reaction for over a decade after. But Obama as performed a much more effective terrorist attack that was undoubtedly hatched long ago with his friendships with the American terrorists Bill Ayers and Michelle’s law office buddy, Bernadine Dorn. With the stroke of a pin, Obama has done much more to destroy the American economy than run a plane into some buildings. He has attacked American business directly—with an Executive Order—and a philosophy bred by socialism—and all the failures that follow in its wake.
This minimum wage law is not about being “fair.” It is about wealth redistribution not even from the rich to the poor but from one country to other countries suffering from economic depravity because of their commitment to social collectivism. To be a strong country, it takes work, innovation, and effort. Americans aren’t just born, they are made. By raising the minimum wage, Obama takes money from those who have worked, innovated and put forth effort and gives it to those who have not. He also destroys the next generation of Americans by rewarding the lazy incentivizing more people to be more so. Why should employees work harder if the good are paid to be bad? The answer is that they shouldn’t. Yet that is what’s happening, and the reason is more than just a thinly veiled attempt at fairness. It is a form of terrorism intended to drain the wealth of one nation into others—and that is why it’s a crime, not a good tiding designed to do good. It is sinister for all that will result and the evil was ushered in with cheers and fanfare……….as it always is.
Rich Hoffman
January 28, 2014
BATKID Saves the Day: The power of fantasy, mythology, and hope to cure illness
I have heard for as long as I’ve interacted with people how my enjoyment of fantasy is an escape from reality brought upon by a desire to not deal with the facts of circumstance. People who desire that the earth is only 4000 years old because thinking outside of those parameters wrecks the foundations of their very lives—do not like things that rock their boat of perceived reality. They are often content to view the world as it has been prepared for them by politics, public relation firms, and religion—and react with disdain toward those who wish to think outside of those boundaries. I find such people grotesquely ignorant, small-minded, and foolishly reckless to not only their lives, but those who they come in contact with. The older I get, the more I despise those people. They are detriments to intelligence. Fantasy is the vehicle to take the mind out of circumstance and into places where new ideas are born. In the context of intelligence the need for fantasy, imagination, and out-of-boundary thought is the specific human need for mythology. Dogs, cats and gold-fish have no need for mythology—they are driven by the basic need to eat, dispose of their waste, and reproduce. Nothing else. The human being thinks—giving mythology a much more important role to their vivid imaginations bringing logic and fantasy together to consider “what if.” This important process was never so brilliantly exhibited than in the Make-A-Wish Foundation story of 5-year-old Miles Scott who is currently in remission from leukemia. Watch this!
It would be difficult to be alive and not have heard this story as the media blitz on it was ferocious. The other day during the interview I did with Matt Clark on WAAM radio, I brought up the kind of things that unify people who appear to be radically different. We talked about the “Tapestries of Ideology” and once they are removed from their lives, common ground can be achieved. One of the most powerful “Tapestries of Ideology” is the power of mythology to overcome the ignorance of political boundaries. This is often what happens in a Star Wars movie where I find I have as much enthusiasm for George Lucas’ creations as Arianna Huffington does. She is a radical progressive, I am a staunch conservative—but we both love Star Wars for many of the same reasons. We both love the plight of the rebellion against an evil empire. She envisions that government should be the way that fairness is given to human kind, and I see it as the destroyer of mankind. That is where the tapestries of ideology come into play where the color, shape, size and all other factors that go into those ornaments are shaped by society, education, and history. But the mythology of Star Wars has the power to extend beyond those tapestries to the actual truth—which is why I always emphasis the importance of mythology in society. It is far more important than politics, or reality as it is shaped by orthodox sources like The New York Times, The Cincinnati Enquirer, or the nightly local news.
As much as I despise President Obama, I shared with the guy a love for little Miles Scott. As much as I think San Francisco is a haven for progressivism, I loved that much of the city turned out to help make Miles Scott’s wish to become a superhero into a reality. Because of the little fellow’s intense desire to be a superhero like the mythical Batman—this is where fantasy can take the mind out of the grim reality of a situation to take mankind to a higher place. Reality says to this child that he has leukemia and that he will die. Mythology says to this child, there is hope if you can become a superhero—so the survival instinct of Miles Scott chose life over death—and to fight instead of accepting his fate.
Thank God for the Make-A-Wish Foundation showing an interest in this child. But more than that, thank God the politicians of San Francisco joined in the effort with an army of similar volunteers. I have never seen such a fine example of the power of myth applied to reality. Out of all the characters that Christian Bale will ever play, none will be more important than his Batman character because none will ever obtain the ability to pull a city like San Francisco together the way that mythology did. It started with the fantasy of Batman and his ability to overcome personal issues to fight crime in the actual comic. Then Miles using that mythology to ask the question “what if.” Then it took the Make-A-Wish Foundation to give the kid a chance at his dream while he is still healthy and alive—before leukemia attacks him again. Then it took normal every day people to help make that fantasy into a reality for little Miles. But in this case, Miles Scott was the focus—the reason for the event, and in a metaphorical way, he saved not just San Francisco—but the entire nation.
Make-A-Wish does this kind of thing all the time. They are a great organization. Recently they made a child in Anaheim Batman’s sidekick Robin and a Seattle child a secret agent. But before they can organize such things Make-A-Wish needs creative people to plant the seed of hope into the mind of a child so that something greater than their circumstance can be comprehended—so that they can make a wish. This is why superheros, comic books, fantastic movies, and big ideas expressed creatively are so important to us all. For many kids not suffering the way that Miles Scott is, the same power holds for them as well. Superheros like Batman are good for the healthy as well as the sick and give hope where reality provided none.
The reason I get so damn mad at those who proclaim that fantasy is an escape from reality is that they are essentially saying that the world would be better off without these influences. They believe that reality was shaped by the politics of the Greeks and solidified by religion 2000 years ago—and that is just stupid. Those periods were just small steps in human progress toward creating a mythology that pushed up against the limits of reality to seek something more than the world currently provides. In the case of Miles Scott and the massive world-wide fanfare that ensued from his desire to be Batkid for a day, somewhere a scientist determined that nobody should suffer death by leukemia. Likely long after Batkid has come and gone from this earth, there will be a cure that was inspired by Miles Scott’s Make-A-Wish dream and the saving of lives won’t just be a fantasy played out on the city streets of San Francisco. It will become a new reality—inspired by fantasy and a new ceiling of human limitation will be revealed—and we will all be better off for it.
That is the power of myth, and the beauty of defying reality through fantasy. Miles Scott saved society for a day by removing the “tapestries of ideology” which divide us all, and put the question on the table—why, and how can “I” fix it?
That! Is Christopher Nolan’s next film……………………..and I will be going to see it!
Rich Hoffman
January 27, 2014
Bob McEwen’s Fight For Justice: A revolutionary war ghost and the power of Cincinnati
I suppose my political beliefs were framed within the context of three men over a four-month period long ago. Prior to the presidential election of 1992 I was in Dallas, Texas spending time with Ross Perot and his family. I learned a lot from these experiences. I had always had a fascination with the Revolutionary War and Ross Perot had a style that brought that sentiment into focus. Then just a few months later I spent a considerable amount of time with Rob Portman as he began to run for the Second Congressional seat that was coming up during a special election. I liked Rob and my opinion leaned in his direction. At a special on-air debate on 700 WLW hosted by Mike McConnell during a Sunday night in Mt Adams, Portman’s challengers attended and I was there to witness the whole extravaganza. That was when I met Bob McEwen whom I initially disliked because of a House banking scandal that hovered over him like an ominous cloud. But for three crucial hours in my life I watched McEwen and Portman have it out with skill and debate that I admired spectacularly. Portman would go on to win, and would be the kind of prominent debater that Mitt Romney would use to prepare for his prime time debates against President Obama. Ross Perot would go down in history as one of the founders of the current Tea Party as his Reform Party essentially began during that Dallas event mentioned—where he would lose his run for president against Billy Clinton. And Bob McEwen hit the lecture circuit being paid $10,000 per speech because of his vast knowledge of history, economics and insider politics. Some of these speeches can be seen below and should be watched entirely. They are real treasures—he is a very good public speaker. In spite of the check bouncing scandal he was a staunch anti-communist, a religious supporter, and an economic scholar with a deep knowledge of history. Out of the three mentioned men, I learned more from Bob McEwen once I forgave him for the congressional scandal and realized why he was targeted—because Washington D.C. wanted him out-of-town. Political insiders wanted Bob McEwen out of their “beltway.” Watch all these videos carefully—preferably many times. And send them to a friend.
McEwen was caught up in the House banking scandal, which had been seized upon by Newt Gingrich, a like-minded conservative House Republican, as an example of the corruption of Congress; members of the House had been allowed to write checks on their accounts, which were paid despite insufficient funds and without penalty. Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News said “McEwen was collateral damage” to Gingrich’s crusade.[25] McEwen initially denied bouncing any checks. Later, he admitted he had bounced a few. Then when the full totals were released by Ethics Committee investigators, the number was revealed to have been 166 over thirty-nine months. McEwen said that he always had funds available to cover the alleged overdrafts, pointing to the policy of the House sergeant-at-arms, who ran the House bank, paying checks on an overdrawn account if it would not exceed the sum of the Representative’s next paycheck.[26] In 1991, McEwen had also been criticized for his use of the franking privilege and his frequent trips overseas at taxpayer expense, but McEwen defended the trips as part of his work on the Intelligence Committee and in building relationships with legislatures overseas.[27]
Robert D. ”Bob“ McEwen (born January 12, 1950) is a lobbyist and American politician of the Republican Party, who was a member of the United States House of Representatives from southern Ohio‘s Sixth District, from January 3, 1981 to January 3, 1993. Tom Deimer of Cleveland‘s Plain Dealer described him as a “textbook Republican” who is “opposed to abortion, gun control, high taxes, and costly government programs.” In the House, he criticized government incompetence and charged corruption by the Democratic majority that ran the House in the 1980s. McEwen, who had easily won three terms in the Ohio House, was elected to Congress at the age of thirty to replace a retiring representative in 1980 and easily won re-election five times.
After a bruising primary battle with another incumbent whose district was combined with his, in which McEwen faced charges of bouncing checks on the House bank, he narrowly lost the 1992 general election to Democrat Ted Strickland. Following an unsuccessful run in the adjacent Second District in 1993, McEwen was largely absent from the Ohio political scene for a decade, until in 2005 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Congress in the Second District special election to replace Rob Portman, who beat him in 1993, and finished second to the winner in the general election, Jean Schmidt. McEwen’s 2005 platform was familiar from his past campaigns, advocating a pro-life stance, defending Second Amendment rights, and promising to limit taxes and government spending. In 2006, he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the Second District.
In Congress, McEwen, who “had a reputation as a man who thinks about politics every waking moment,” claimed Congressional Quarterly, was a staunch conservative, advocating a strong military.[2] In addition, he was a strong advocate for government works in his district — dams, roads, locks and the like much as Harsha had been — as McEwen was on the House’s Public Works and Transportation Committee.[3] The Chillicothe Gazette would salute him for his work on funding for U.S. Route 35, a limited access highway linking Chillicothe to Dayton.[4] In general, however, McEwen advocated reduced government spending.
A vehement anti-Communist, he visited Tbilisi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1991 to help tear down the hammer-and-sickle iconography of the Communist regime.[5] That year he also called for the House to establish a select committee to investigate the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue – whether any soldiers declared “missing in action” in the Vietnam War and other American wars were still alive – by sponsoring H. Res. 207.[6]
McEwen was not a man to mince words. In the heated debate in 1985 over a Congressional seat in Indiana between Republican Richard D. McIntyre, whom the Indiana Secretary of State had certified as winning a seat in the 99th Congress, and Democrat Frank McCloskey, in which the House declined to seat McIntyre, McEwen declared on the House floor, “Mr. Speaker, you know how to win votes the old-fashioned way — you steal them.”[11] When McEwen was late in 1990 to the House because of a massive traffic jam on the I-495 beltway around Washington, D.C., he said on the House floor on February 21 that the District of Columbia’s government should be replaced:
The total incompetence of the D.C. government in Washington, DC, has become an embarrassment to our entire Nation. This experiment in home rule is a disaster. All of us who serve in this Chamber, well over 95% of us, have held other positions in government. We have been mayors. We have been township trustees, State legislators, and the rest. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that there are well over 2,000 township trustees in my congressional district who with one arm tied behind their backs, could blindfolded do a better job of directing this city than the city council of D.C. It is high time that this experiment in home rule that has proven to be a disaster for our nation be terminated, that we return to some sort of logical government whereby the rest of us can function in this city.[12]
After McEwen was criticized for his remarks, he delivered a thirty-minute speech in the House on March 1, 1990, on “The Worst City Government in America”.[13] Because of the crime problem in the District, McEwen also attempted to pass legislation overturning the District council’s ban on mace, saying people in the District should be able to defend themselves.[14] During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, McEwen introduced legislation to end President Gerald Ford‘s ban on U.S. government employees assassinating foreign leaders (Executive Order 12333) in order to clear the way for Saddam Hussein‘s removal, McEwen objecting to the “cocoon of protection that is placed around him because he holds the position that he holds as leader of his country.”[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_McEwen
For people who believe that Cincinnati, Ohio is just a flyover city, they are sadly mistaken. The region of my home town produces very interesting people, life changing ideas, and I am proud of it. Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Nick Clooney, Ted Turner, Annie Oakley, Nick Longworth who married Teddy Roosevelt’s cherished daughter Alice, William Taft, the Voice of America, the Crosely brothers, Kings Island, Rob Portman and of course Bob McEwen along with many others. Not all of those names are good ones, but Cincinnati throughout history has been at the center of the heartbeat of the nation. McEwen is still out there fighting for freedom as a political outsider—pushed out of the beltway by those who didn’t like his message. And behind him is the next generation of freedom fighters. The Cincinnati Tea Party is one of the strongest in the nation and is directly challenging current House Speaker John Boehner and the fraudulent Ohio governor John Kasich who launched and won his campaign against Ted Strickland because of the Cincinnati Tea Party. Cincinnati is where the fight is at. It is the modern version of Trenton, New Jersey in the new Revolution for independence.
Bob McEwen is a product of Cincinnati, a man deeply committed to undoing the kind of progressive underpinnings brought to the city at the turn of the 20th Century by Nick Longworth and his father-in-law Teddy Roosevelt along with William Howard Taft. Before these characters, Cincinnati was where the great Simeon Kenton settled with his sheer will and a hatchet well before any “White Man” braved the wild frontier of Cincinnati. Tecumseh and his Shawnee warriors were from Cincinnati. Tecumseh was born where modern day Xenia is today and fought directly with Simeon Kenton for this holy ground of the Ohio River valley—particularly Cincinnati. Kenton was in the Ohio River Valley because he was running from the “White Men” European decedents for much the same reasons that the Indians did. Tecumseh couldn’t hold off the “White Settlers” as more and more people fled European tyranny in much the same way that Cubans risked life and limb to swim to Miami, Florida to escape communism. The Shawnee would grudgingly flee the Cincinnati area as President Washington had a fort built in his name to defend the region. Another fort to the north along the Great Miami River named Fort Hamilton was built in dedication to Washington’s right hand man—Alexander Hamilton, and just down the road was a town named after James Monroe. In between those places was a township called “Liberty” which was established in direct honor of the Revolutionary War.
I grew up next to the grave of the Revolutionary War veteran John Ayers and his wife Sarah. He fought in Elizabethtown, Van Nest Mill, Piscataway, and Monmouth. Their graves can still be visited; they are in the back yard of the homes off the Butler County Regional Highway at the 747 exit if traveling toward the east. As a kid I discovered this cemetery overrun by dirt and trampled by cows deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I brought home Sarah’s tombstone to my mother to prove that the place existed and she was extremely furious. I put the head stone back, and often wondered if the ghost of John Ayers plagued me with images of war, fighting for freedom, and settling an area braving the elements just to run away from European collectivism because I disturbed his wife’s grave. In all reality, it is likely that Cincinnati itself and the region of land projecting out for 75 miles in every direction has a soul that rises up to meet oppression—and the bad guys of the world know it. For decades the Soviet Union had nuclear missiles pointed at the GE plant in Evendale and Hitler wanted desperately to destroy the Voice of America in Mason, Ohio. And the Washington establishment wanted to destroy the man from Cincinnati, Bob McEwen and his crusade against communism, fiscal irresponsibility, and the preservation of Christian values.
I learned a little from everyone mentioned—some of those names were good, some were sinister—but all came from Cincinnati and had something for me to learn from—and I did—including the ghost of John Ayers and his family who I often felt patrolled the haunted woods outside my bedroom window where a highway and many homes now exist. For as long as I can remember I had an affinity for the Revolutionary War and it is likely that John Ayers had something to do with it as I spent most of my time as a kid outside hunting for old cemeteries, and the bodies buried by local politics which I despised for as long as I have memory. Bob McEwen is another of these Cincinnati products, and now that you have heard some of his speeches dear reader, you might understand why I was so taken with him as he debated Rob Portman during a special election at 700 WLW on a spring like Sunday evening. Out of Portman, Perot and McEwen, it is the later that is still as deeply committed to liberty and freedom. The rest of them either sold out, or ran out of gas—but McEwen never really gave up. He has been chipping away at the barriers for freedom for decades and really never let the ominous clouds of politics push him aside—which is why I admire him so much. I am happy to report that like the ghost of John Ayers, the Revolutionary War vet that I grew up with as a ghostly friend, Bob McEwen has been a tremendous influence on how I see the world—and perhaps you will enjoy his work as well.
Rich Hoffman
January 26, 2014
The Most Important Story You Never Heard: Scott Walker’s “Blueprint for Prosperity”
I agree with Rush Limbaugh, Scott Walker’s announcement during his recent “State of the State Address” is the most important news story happening right now—and it is being kept purposely out of the mainstream news. The reason is that it proves that progressive leadership pillaging of tax payer dollars for ideological and selfish advancement has failed miserably. Scott Walker’s fiscal policies primarily in reforming collective bargaining agreements against violent Democratic, and public sector union opposition paved the way to saving Wisconsin a lot of money invoking nearly $800 million in tax cuts on the back of a $912 million dollar surplus. That is a huge story with far-reaching impact. He did what John Kasich chickened out of, and Chris Christie only alluded to—Walker’s victory was resolute and grotesquely obvious. It is a sign of the world to come. Many of the progressive policies that are currently bankrupting America and its cities started in Wisconsin during the progressive era—so it is only fitting that it end there as well. Scott Walker’s announcement essentially was a declaration of the end of progressive politics. Walker has been able to save more public sector jobs while also giving back money to the residents of Wisconsin spurring tremendous incentives for businesses to thrive under his governorship in a way that is currently unprecedented anywhere in the world. In just four years Scott Walker has turned around the economic situation in the very liberal Wisconsin right under the nose of protests, death threats and legal attempts to destroy him. Yet he has prevailed providing all of America—and the world—a “Blueprint for Prosperity” that if followed could enrich the life of even the poorest African nation within months, change the bankruptcy status of states like California, and save school districts like Lakota in Southern Ohio from neurotic slugs of cellulite trapping many human cells within the body of complete idiots. Listen to Rush’s broadcast on this matter and read more at the Breitbart link below:
I wrote the other day about the new school board at West Clermont who is planning to do essentially the same thing in their school district as Scott Walker did in the state of Wisconsin. Soon states, cities and other political districts will be forced by necessity to follow Scott Walker’s “Blueprint for Prosperity.” That promise has traditional Republicans who have suddenly found themselves well to the political left like swimmers at sea caught in a riptide. They had no idea they had drifted so far from shore—but over time they didn’t see the progressive current which had swept them along so gradually. Now they are drowning from their own neglect and stupidity—and they can only deny their follies publicly. They are attempting to turn away from the Walker news because for them, it is too late. They cannot salvage their reputations. Boehner has blown his chance, Portman has, Romney did, Mitch McConnell has, Kasich, Christie, just about everyone who calls themselves Republicans. They were all caught in the same progressive riptide and are well left of center—compared to people like Walker, Paul, and Cruz.
Democrats are even worse off, they have openly advocated socialism for the last 50 years—and it was their dumb ideas which have pretty much destroyed our country. They blamed Scott Walker over the last four years of destroying the middle-class, of giving away tax breaks to the rich—they never considered that the cost of the taxes were in dispute because the things they spent the money on were unneeded, and corrupt. Walker’s policies are only bad for public servants who have voted themselves tremendous raises as government workers. There are teachers in America who make more money than some governors of several states. The superintendent of Lakota has a compensation package that is on par with the Governor of Ohio. She makes as much money running a school district of a declining population of 17,000 students and just under 2000 employees while the governor is responsible for an entire state. She makes so much money because several Lakota teachers make six figure incomes which of course drives up the cost of management. If employees make six figures then obviously the administrators should make more so they never dispute pay increases for teachers because they have a general approach to fiscal matters that all boats rise, even if they all aren’t important, or needed. This destroys their budgets and is the primary cause of tax increases.
Not counting fuel and sales taxes I paid as much money in taxes during 2013 to purchase a luxury car with cash. I do not support the public schools, I take care of my own EMS needs, and for police—I have the Second Amendment. I don’t think America should be in bases all over the world doing the dirty work of the United Nations and I don’t want the NSA, IRS, FBI, CIA, or even the Post Office. Being conservative, it is unlikely that I used $1000 worth of the many thousands that I paid in taxes for actual services that I might value. Most of my money was stolen from me and given to derelicts and miscreants too lazy to be productive. Progressives have created more of these people by stealing my money and giving it to people who have done nothing to earn it except being born. Then these same idiots turn around and declare that abortion is good for women, and that society is somehow better without faith-based religion. Liberals and their beliefs may technically qualify them as mentally retarded. They may need help for their condition—but they certainly don’t need an office in control of budgets. Yet they have been in charge for a very long time and the tax rates have been implemented over time to be entirely too high giving back very little in real fiscal value. If I didn’t spend so much money in taxes I’d have well over a million dollars in savings for my retirement in my 40s. All Americans would be better off and the government would not be a middleman between my future and my past as they are now. Taxes are simply out of control now, so Walker’s $800 million in tax cuts are very refreshing—particularly in property taxes.
Wisconsin is proving that this formula against higher taxation works and for other states to compete with Wisconsin, they’ll have to adapt. For politicians like John Boehner, he can’t admit to it because like his Democratic partners in Washington, he is too far to the left also, and can’t endorse Walker without betraying all the deals he’s made over the years. The media because they have helped create all these social failures associated with progressivism can’t put a light on Walker’s success because it makes them look like fools. And of course Obama and his minions of socialists, communists, and former American terrorists are deeply committed to the kind of activity that Walker’s reforms attacked. Did everyone forget about the 14 Democrats who fled the state defying orders to return hoping to block a vote reforming collective bargaining—an act that brought Barack Obama to inject himself into the matter—in the long ago time of 2011? Apparently a lot of people forgot about that. Even so, Walker prevailed and won, and now all the fear mongering against him has proven to be untrue. Surprise!
Instead of the Walker story, a number of staunch Tea Party Republicans have been rounded up for prosecution on offenses much more minor than the IRS abuse story committed by The White House, the Benghazi deaths, or the Fast and Furious debacles. The message is clear; the federal government is attacking people who think like Walker hoping to impose fear into anyone who might try to duplicate his efforts. But as proven in Wisconsin, the feds don’t have any teeth. They are a bunch of pussies that lobby for millions of dollars for turtle crossings in Florida and believe that global warming is real. They are too stupid to run any economy, or put people like Dinesh D’Souza in prison. Heck even Mike Brown, the owner of The Cincinnati Bengals can beat the federal government. His team hasn’t won a playoff game during the entire 20 plus year duration of his leadership. But he can beat local and federal government. So why would anybody in their right mind fear the government? Scott Walker and a handful of law makers completely changed the direction of Wisconsin. Just think what a small army of similar conviction minded patriots could achieve. Those government idiots don’t stand a chance.
The only defense progressives have is to keep the story away from people’s eyes and ears. But it won’t work this time—the truth will be driven by results—results readily produced in Wisconsin in the last year of Governor Scott Walker’s first term.
Rich Hoffman
