Items From My Mailbox: The Road To Greece...Thanks Bonnie

hello Greece move over, here we come

***** HAWAII LOOKS PRETTY GOOD TO ME........ *****

Can’t you hear students telling their teachers they want to be welfare recipients when they grow up?

THE WORK ETHIC WE INHERITED GROWING UP HAS FALLEN PREY TO THE 'WELFARE' SYSTEM

The Cato Institute released an updated 2014 study (original study in 1955) showing that welfare benefits pay more than a minimum wage job in 33 states and the District of Columbia.

Even worse, welfare pays more than $15 per hour in 13 states.
According to the study, welfare benefits have increased faster than minimum wage.

It’s now more profitable to sit at home and watch TV than it is to earn an honest day’s pay.

Hawaii is the biggest offender, where welfare recipients earn $29.13 per hour, or a $60,590 yearly salary, all for doing nothing.


Here is the list of the states where the pre-tax equivalent "salary" that welfare recipients receive is higher than having a job:

1. Hawaii : $60,590
2. District of Columbia : $50,820
3. Massachusetts : $50,540
4. Connecticut : $44,370
5. New York : $43,700
6. New Jersey : $43,450
7. Rhode Island : $43,330
8. Vermont : $42,350
9. New Hampshire : $39,750
10. Maryland : $38,160
11. California : $37,160
12. Oregon : $34,300
13. Wyoming : $32,620
14. Nevada : $29,820
15. Minnesota : $29,350
16. Delaware : $29,220
17. Washington : $28,840
18. North Dakota : $28,830
19. Pennsylvania : $28,670
20. New Mexico : $27,900
21. Montana : $26,930
22. South Dakota : $26,610
23. Kansas: $26,490
24. Michigan : $26,430
25. Alaska : $26,400
26. Ohio : $26,200
27. North Carolina : $25,760
28. West Virginia : $24,900
29. Alabama : $23,310
30. Indiana : $22,900
31. Missouri : $22,800
32. Oklahoma : $22,480
33. Louisiana : $22,250
34. South Carolina :$21,910

As a point of reference the average Middle Class annual income today is $50,000, down from $54,000 at the beginning of the Great Recession.
Hawaii , DC , and Massachusetts pay more in welfare than the average working folks earn there.

Is it any wonder that they stay home rather than look for a job.
Time for a drastic change.
America is virtually bankrupt.

Note that California is $18.50 an hour.

Are we Nuts or what? How do we un-do this type of stupidity … This is crazy!

Salary of retired United States Presidents $180,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of House/Senate....$174,000 FOR LIFE
This is beyond stupid !!!!!!!

Salary of Speaker of the House ....$223,500 FOR LIFE!
This is really stupid.

Salary of Majority/Minority Leader $193,400 FOR LIFE!
Ditto last line.

Average Salary of a teacher ... $40,065

Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN .. $38,000
Think about this !!!!!

Nancy Pelosi will retire as a SPEAKER in Congress at $223,500 a year dollars a year for LIFE.

She is just one of the hundreds of Senators and Congress that float in and out every year!

I think we found where the cuts should be made!

If you agree ...... pass it on, I just did.

Wake UP America ! Unless you really don’t care that your country is bankrupt at the likes of these people !


You have only the rights you are willing to fight for!

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. -Benjamin Franklin

"If ever the time should come, when vain & aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government,
our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." Samuel Adams

Introducing Tomi Lahren: You Won't See This Candor On Fox News

A DOSE OF COMMON SENSE

Not Waiting For An Executive Order: Armed Citizens Stand Guard At Recruitment Centers

HIRAM, Ga. -

The morning after a deadly attack on two military centers in Chattanooga, residents in Hiram are standing watch outside the local recruiting office with their personal firearms. It is their unique way of honoring the fallen Marines and they said to protect the lives of those who serve in the military. Complete story:

Why Are Flags Not Lowered Half Mast In Honor Of Fallen Jihad Victims?

So Valerie and Company can light up the White House in rainbow lights to celebrate a Supreme Court decision but cannot find red, white and blue lights for Independence Day despite a White House petition requesting such a display?

Now it seems the White House cannot lower the flags in honor of the five slain jihad workplace violence victims who were never given a fighting chance last Thursday.

Does anyone think these are oversights?

Open Memo To GOP: Do Not Force Trump To Go Third Party

Bill Clinton has a lot of people to thank for his success and at the top of his list is Ross Perot. Had not the egomaniacal billionaire harbored an irrational malice towards George H. W. Bush, there would never have been a first Clinton administration, nor a second, nor a possible third. As with his own mother, Bill Clinton cannot truly repay Ross Perot for all the goodness he has bestowed upon him.

There are a lot of parallels with Ross Perot and Donald Trump. They are two wealthy, confident, blustering, non-career politicians who break the usual candidate molds. Both men have a talent for turning a phrase. Ironically or otherwise it is our relationship with Mexico that best defines their political narratives. Perot was an outspoken critic of North America Free Trade Agreement. Trump is an outspoken critic of illegal immigration.

Perot was third party from the onset. Trump showed loyalty to the GOP and jumped into their game. Now we are being told that the big tent is not as big as we thought it was. There is a rumored move to have The Donald banned from the debates despite his lead in the polls. That would be a big mistake. Do you want anyone to watch your debates? If so, include Trump.

There is also the distinct possibility that if Trump is banned from the debates he will run his own debate on another network that will outdraw the GOP debate. This guy is no sissy. He will push back. Better to have him as a friend than an enemy.

There is a simple message here: Fight, dammit, fight! If Huckabee had shown this kind of fight in 2008, he would have been his party's nominee. Had Rick Perry, or even Rick Santorum, taken the same "tell it like it is" approach in 2012, Mitt Romney would have been second on the ticket.

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the GOP needs Donald Trump more than Donald Trump needs the GOP.

An Immodest Proposal: Arm Recruiters

President Obama is not shy about issuing executive orders. Why not write an order mandating that all military recruiters carry sidearms? Requisite training will be provided.

ISIS is targeting unarmed military personnel. Recruiters are sitting ducks. Let's give them a fighting chance.

Not Exactly A Book Review: Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey by David Horowitz

I used to believe that Timothy Leary lived the most amazing life ever lived, with or without copious amounts of LSD. Not the most noble or most honorable life but amazing in a strange and sometimes tragic way. He was a Harvard professor on the ground floor of psychology before the field lost its mystique. He butted heads with luminaries and then found himself mingling with artists, avant garde types, blue bloods and socialites. His life is marked by sudden twists and turns that finds him escaping prison with the aid of the Weather Underground, fleeing to Algeria where he is mistreated by Eldridge Cleaver. Later, he is apprehended and thrown into a cell next to Charles Manson. Ultimately Leary reinvents himself as a Hollywood party icon, a human prop who lends cool cred to the up and coming host. A beautiful person who could be rented for the evening.

David Horowitz's life is every bit as strange as Leary's. Horowitz is a red diaper baby who would lose faith in Leftism in his middle years and would ultimately become a convert to Conservatism. I became interested in American Communism after reading Paul Kengor's "The Communist", a biography of Barack Obama's mysterious mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. What amazed me is how prevalent and widespread and well-hidden Communists were in America. It's as if Joe McCarthy was right about everything and this country owes him a posthumous apology. The bogeyman was real after all.

Under any circumstances, the appeal of Marxism will be puzzling to me. Years ago, I attempted to read "Das Kapital." It was like swimming in cement. Give me any TOS, any credit card company privacy statement, any policy manual, even "Dianetics." I literally could not read Marx. Years later I still marvel that Marxism is pornography for some people. Go figure.

If you can imagine "The Americans" minus the action scenes you have some idea what Horowitz's family life was like. Whereas the Jennings live their lives in relative solitude, the Horowitzs are surrounded by like-minded people. Everyone is carrying water for The Communist Workers in one capacity or another. They move into a neighborhood in New York City that was structurally engineered to promote communal living. Soon fences are constructed and shades are drawn. The residents face moral dilemmas such as the private ownership of real estate and the profits from selling property that has increased in value.

For all of their silliness, the Horowitzs are a family of intellectuals. Young David is schooled in the classics and exposed to the great minds of history and his quality education is reflected in his writing. I have read science fiction where seven-digit creatures conquer earth and novels where simulacra become indistinguishable from flesh and blood people and none of those stories are as strange to me as the hyper-cerebral Jewish intellectual Communists who invaded America.

I can understand a heated family political discussion but I cannot imagine one that pits the defenders of the Soviet Union against the fans of the more genuinely Marxist Hungarian Communists. I can understand being philosophically opposed to all capital punishment but I cannot for the life of me understand the shedding of tears for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. The Horowitzs and their friends are the most foreign people I have ever encountered.

The sins of USSR and Joseph Stalin are ignored by the loyalists. Then Kruschev releases a damning report on Papa Joe in 1956 outlining his numerous atrocities against his own people. Horowitz says that some American Communists actually committed suicide after the release of the broadside.

Lefties have a habit of changing their labels and verbiage without altering their core values. Marxists become Communists. Communists become Socialists. Socialists become Liberals. Liberals become Progressives, ad infinitum. From early adulthood till middle age, Horowitz devoted himself to the rise of The New Left.

Horowitz marries and fathers four children. Their family is like every other family except for the parents' commitment to the umpteenth repackaging of a bad idea. David and Elissa worry about the corrupting influence of popular culture on their progeny. The eldest son wants to skip out on a Black Panther funeral to watch the Oakland A's on TV. He is forced to mourn but sneaks a transistor radio to the proceedings.

As a prince of Leftism, Horowitz meets with big shots and assorted legends. R. D. Laing, Bertrand Russell, Sarte, the SDS, The Weather Underground, The Black Panthers, The SLA and a boatload of Hollywood movers and shakers. There is an amusing meeting between Joan Baez and Bertrand Russell where neither party knew exactly who the other person was but both were aware that they were meeting fellow icons.

Horowitz pulls no punches with his old friends and comrades. If you are of the opinion that Tom Hayden was the sleaziest human being of the twentieth century, this book will not change your viewpoint. There are more than bad ideas at play here. There are bad people as well.

It would be the Oakland Black Panthers and their loyal apologists who would challenge Horowitz to check his premises. A female bookkeeper is murdered and the trail leads back to the Panthers. He might be a slow learner but the author starts to see that Huey Newton and company are not revolutionaries, they are thugs. More disconcerting is the callous manner in which his Leftist friends dismiss the mounting atrocities.

Aggravated rape, extortion, probably at least a dozen murders; Huey Newton was nothing if not versatile. He consumed gargantuan quantities of cocaine. He was also shrewd. He preferred a white liberal jury because those dupes bought into his public persona whereas a black jury might not be so easily fooled. Whatever else can be said about Newton, he was the impetus for Horowitz to finally jettison his silliest ideas.

For my interest, Horowitz's childhood and early adulthood are more intriguing than his eventual conversion but the author's chaotic personal life keeps the narrative flowing. Horowitz teams up with Peter Collier to write a series of books on famous American families. The first of such is "The Rockefellers."

Horowitz interviews Abby Rockefeller and they have an affair that eventually leads to the break-up of the author's first marriage. Pain and gloom. Gloom and pain. Marriages numbered two and three don't work out at all. Wisdom and folly arrive in tandem. It is a mark of a good writer to discuss one's misery without falling into self-pity. I would say Horowitz does that pretty well.

Horowitz writes with a brilliance that only comes with experience. The Becks and Levins and Coulters might have insight into the ways of the Left, but not like someone who was born and raised at the epicenter. I cannot recommend "Radical Son" highly enough. On Amazon's scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 10.