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New ‘Rentals Available’ on Menu

Check out our new ‘Rentals Available’ on the Menu bar above.

This is new for us. We are going to start out small (at first) and will list, for free, Rental Apartments and Houses available in West Burlington as a service to our good city’s newest citizens.

For more information on our new service, please click ‘E-mail Falcon’ on the Menu above and request information on how to get your West Burlington rental listed here.

Thanks – Falcon

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Burlington Iowa News West Burlington

Ammo Prices Doubled Since December

Click Here: A box containing 500 rounds of .22LR was selling for approximately $20/box back in December.  Today, the same box sells for $49, a 145 percent increase in price. The .223 was selling for $0.50 a round in mid-December.  Today it sells for $1.00/round; a 100 percent increase in price.

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Burlington Iowa Letters to Falcon West Burlington

Immigration & Welfare

Falcon:

Seems to me once they come to a so called “Comprehensive Immigration Plan” there will be no hope for further reductions in the welfare crowds we already have in the United States because we’ll be adding something like 11 million more low end workers.  The low end American workers have no desire to work anyway and will continue to be a burden forever.

This means we’ll utilize the new uneducated immigrants for the low paying jobs while those Americans already on the welfare rolls will just continue to live their entire lives as wards of the taxpayers and contribute nothing to the American system other than cost.

Of course there is little effort by the government to see those on welfare stop having babies with multiple no show fathers and seek work doing something that immigrants readily scoff up on a daily basis and most of the money they earn goes back to Mexico because they have no desire to be U.S. citizens and remain loyal to Mexico.  Of course the government is so full of bureaucrats with grand ideas they fail to see what happens when these people are given a free ride just like the welfare people of which many are wards of the people their entire lives.

Anyone saying we need the immigrants is lying because we have so many working age Americans just sitting around playing video games, doing drugs, criminal acts, creating fatherless babies and just taking up space it would boggle the mind.

We have become a nation of deadbeat loafers because of government run schools and social welfare handouts without expecting any return on the wasted lives from these people.

Liberalism is killing out country through their sick agenda driven hate for how our country was founded and created that basically waste all the lives lost defending the American way over the 236 years our country has been around.  Liberalism is nothing more than a group of bigoted hypocrites out to destroy America through any underhanded means they can create and get through the liberal courts forcing all Americans to lose freedom after freedom.  Liberalism is nothing more than a form of political diarrhea flowing across the country.  We also have a president that is completely in over his head with no experience at any form of supervision let alone work experience, what a mess America is in.

SF

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Burlington Iowa Obituaries West Burlington

Obituaries

Don ” Hoot ”  Leroy Gibson, 85, Burlington died Friday, March 29, 2013

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Burlington Iowa West Burlington

Happy Easter

Cross

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Burlington Iowa Letters to Falcon West Burlington

Med Students Reject Dr. Ben Carson

Falcon:

I see where the medical students out at John Hopkins don’t want Dr. Ben Carson to speak at their graduation because he believes in the Constitution along with the first Amendment both of which the students don’t simply because Dr. Carson has different ideas about running the country something these ignorant students never heard of at college the seat of most liberalism learning.

The students think it’s constitutional to form a mob scene and demand Dr. Carson not speak simply because he disagrees with Obama.  It’s obvious the students haven’t learned anything about freedom of speech at John Hopkins leaving them as out of touch as Obama himself.  This just proves many of our colleges and university’s aren’t teaching students anything much about American other than the liberal or loser side of the equation.

Obama is a person that has never done anything but take from the trough as most liberals feel is their right through birth into liberalism.  Obama never earned his Nobel Prize just like Al Gore who’s never done anything for humanity other than line his pockets as has Obama.

It’s just a disaster that the press and most TV news organizations have kept a large portion of the college students, welfare people, unwarranted disability receivers, minorities, illegal aliens, high school students and others uninformed about Obama to the point they know more about North Korea’s President Kim Jung-Un than Obama himself.

In my point of view Dr. Carson is much more American and honest than is our president who proves elections can be stolen by someone who has done nothing exceptional and never really held a job and knows little about anything governmental specially the Constitution just like the med students at John Hopkins.

Liberalism is mob-ism and laziness all rolled into one package plus their non-believers in the Constitution.

SF

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Burlington Iowa News Political West Burlington

State Issues from Tom Sands

News from the Hill…

The Myth of Cost-Free Medicaid Expansion….

It is a myth that expanding Medicaid doesn’t cost Iowa taxpayers any money because the federal government pays 100% of the expansion.  That is false and it is a myth propagated by proponents of Medicaid expansion.

Expanding Medicaid the way some have proposed has two fundamental problems:

1-It costs more every year for the same services.

2-It doesn’t make Iowans healthier.

Currently Iowa has 400,000 people enrolled in Medicaid.  The FY 14 estimate is that this will cost $1.2 billion in state dollars which is $88.5 million more than last year.  This cost grows every year because the number of Iowans who qualify grows, if expansion is approved or not.  Since 2000, Medicaid enrollment has gone up 88% and Medicaid expenditures are up 226%.  With or without Obamacare, the cost of Medicaid is going up.

Additionally, there are between 52,000 and 81,000 people who qualify for Medicaid but are not enrolled.  The cost of providing Medicaid to these Iowans over the next seven years is estimated at between $327 million and $564 million of additional state funds.  Under Obamacare, these people have to be enrolled in Medicaid because they are not eligible to receive health insurance.  The state is required to pay for these people at the current rateThese people ARE NOT among the new enrollees which the federal government promises to cover at 100% for three years.  Once again, the cost on Iowans goes up again.

Finally, you have 150,000 people who will become newly eligible for Medicaid under Obamacare.  The federal government promises to pay 100% of the cost for these people for three years.  After three years, the federal share decreases.

I believe it is irresponsible and foolhardy to believe the federal government will live up to its funding promises. Just last week the U.S. Senate decided to repeal one of the key revenue generators for Medicaid expansion when it repealed the medical device tax.  With that revenue stream gone, the feds are forced to find it elsewhere.  A logical and easy place to go is lower the percentage they will reimburse states for the newly-eligible Medicaid recipients.

It is a myth that expanding Medicaid doesn’t cost the hardworking taxpayers of Iowa any money.  Medicaid costs are going up, even if it’s not expanded.  But Medicaid is going to cost EVEN MORE if we DO expand.

We need an Iowa solution.  Right now we have a Medicaid program that people on both sides of the aisle believe is broken.  That broken system treats Iowans over and over for the same chronic diseases and the same medical issues while Iowa taxpayers keep paying for it, over and over.  At the same time, none of these Medicaid recipients are getting healthier.  Without an outcomes-driven program, like the Governor’s Healthy Iowa Plan, we have no hope of containing costs or making Iowans on another Medicaid program healthier.

Once Iowa decides to jump into Medicaid expansion with both feet, there is no backing out.  The Supreme Court reaffirmed our right to decide if we want in, but it also did not stipulate a right to leave once we’re in.  Regardless, this would leave needy Iowans out in the cold – we need an Iowa program now.

The hardworking taxpayers of Iowa are not interested in ceding control of the fastest growing portion of the state budget to Washington, DC.

The Governor’s Healthy Iowa Plan has three goals:

Improve the quality of careprovides a benefits package similar to private care that includes in and outpatient services, physician services, prescription drugs, home health, durable medical equipment, therapies and some transportation.

Lower costs:  implements personal responsibility mechanisms that have worked in other states and the private sector to encourage members to be cost-conscious consumers of health care as well as healthy behaviors.

Make Iowans healthierrewards health care providers for helping make Iowans healthier.

“Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.” – Ronald Reagan


For more information on these and other bills:  www.legis.iowa.gov

-Tom Sands

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Burlington Iowa Obituaries West Burlington

Obituaries

Scott Reid Samberg, 57, of Burlington, died Thursday, March 28, 2013

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Burlington Iowa Letters to Falcon West Burlington

Will Rogers’ Timeless Quotes

Falcon,

These quotes by Will Rogers are as true today as they were back in the 20s and 30s only the players have changed.  The quality of our president and congress is 3rd world at best and continues to fall dragging us all down with them.

The president and the congress create our problems themselves and then run for reelection by running a campaign to clean up corruption and poor government in Washington, just a vicious circle with no end.

People sure are unhappy with Congress. Gallup says its approval rating is at 14 percent — the lowest ever. The timeless wit and wisdom of Will Rogers explains why:

•     “Congress is so strange; a man gets up to speak and says nothing, nobody listens, and then everybody disagrees.”

•     “We all joke about Congress, but we can’t improve on them. Have you noticed that no matter who we elect, he is just as bad as the one he replaces?”

•     “When Congress makes a joke it’s a law, and when they make a law, it’s a joke.”

Rogers spoke these words in the 1920s and 1930s, but they’re just as true now. When voters put Democrats in office, they voted for change — voted for an end to partisan yapping. But the yapping has gotten worse.

They also voted for Democrats to end the sloppy, arrogant, fiscally irresponsible ways of Republicans, but Democrats were happy to pick right up where the Republicans left off.

As for jokes that are laws and laws that are jokes, is anybody happy with Congress’ immigration reform initiatives?

Of course there’s nothing new about the shenanigans of Congress:

•     “We cuss Congress, and we joke about ’em, but they are all good fellows at heart, and if they weren’t in Congress, why, they would be doing something else against us that might be even worse.”

•     “Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don’t hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.”

That is for certain. There are some nutty ideas floating around in Congress, but so long as they never become laws, no harm is done. And because our government is divided, thank goodness it’s hard for either side to ram any agenda through.

And the country usually runs better when Congress is unable to get things done.

Rogers saved some of his best barbs for the Senate, the allegedly august body of distinguished minds that is supposed to snuff out bad ideas and bills and advance good ones. Though even during Rogers’ time, things hardly ever turned out that way:

•     “About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”

•     “Senators are a never-ending source of amusement, amazement and discouragement.”

•     “The Senate just sits and waits till they find out what the president wants, so they know how to vote against him.”

I’m amazed that Rogers could describe Sen. Harry Reid some 70 years before Reid became Senate majority leader. Reid truly is a fellow who is “not as narrow-minded as he forces himself to be.”

That’s what is most agitating about our Congress. Too many members on both sides of the aisle are narrow-minded, partisan and looking to advance their self-interests.

The average American doesn’t like that. The average American knows that the country is facing giant challenges — entitlement programs that are going to bankrupt us, radicals who want to blow us up, spending that has spiraled out of control …

The average American wants these problems to be solved by people who are interested in the good of their country — not Republicans and Democrats interested in the good of their parties.

It’s no wonder we are disgusted. Of course, that’s nothing new either:

•     “It’s getting so if a man wants to stand well socially, he can’t afford to be seen with either the Democrats or the Republicans.”

•     “There is something about a Republican that you can only stand him just so long; and on the other hand, there is something about a Democrat that you can’t stand him quite that long.”

We can only hope our Congress begins to comprehend what the American people have been trying to tell it — that it needs to get in step with the wisdom and will of the people.

And that “our country is not where it is today on account of any one man. It’s here on account of the real common sense of the Big Normal Majority.”

FS

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Burlington Fort Madison Iowa Obituaries West Burlington

Obituaries

Ina James Brown, 87, West Point, died Thursday, March 28, 2013

Donna Mae McCoy, 74, Burlington, formerly Fort Madison, died Thursday, March 28, 2013