Category: Letters to Falcon

Falcon,

Hillary Clinton once jabbed at President Obama: “You campaign in poetry but govern in prose”. Today the appropriate reformulation would be: you campaign publicly but govern privately. Despite grandiose promises to be the most transparent administration in American history, essential information regarding our foreign policy engagements only makes its way to the light of day in a slow drip, and even then tortured by mendacious spin. Despite the ubiquity of modern media, our armed forces wage secret wars in shadows and suffer untold losses, unreported by either the Obama administration or its media minions

Exhibit A: on September 14th, American forces in Afghanistan suffered what has been called by one military expert “arguably the worst day in [Marine Corps] aviation history since the Tet Offensive in 1968” and the most debilitating hit a squadron of this kind has absorbed since World War II. More than two dozen Taliban fighters, many of them disguised in American military uniforms, attacked Camp Bastion, the home of a Marine Corps VMA-211 squadron. The damage done to the fleet of specialized combat aircrafts was devastating, destroying 8 of 10 Harrier AV-8B’s, an astounding 7% of the total carrier fleet reduced to smoldering rubble by charging suicide bombers with explosives strapped to their chests. Squadron Commander Christopher Raible was killed in the surprise offensive. It has been confirmed that US and NATO forces killed 14 of the attackers but it is still undetermined if any survived or escaped or how many precisely were involved in the attack.

All available evidence indicates that this was a meticulously strategized and professionally executed attack, as tactically sound as it was bold. This has lead to expert speculation that the invaders were somehow trained or supported by either the Pakistani-sponsored Haqqani network, which has a significant presence in Afghanistan, and that it acted on intelligence provided either by careful and long term reconnaissance or inside information. It has also been hypothesized that the assault was motivated to specifically target Prince Harry, who was stationed at British-run Camp Bastion as part of a helicopter regiment and was planning on celebrating his birthday the next morning.

According to John Gresham, an expert at the Defense Media Network, some of the damage done is literally irreparable:

“Eight irreplaceable aircraft (the AV-8B has been out of production since 1999) have been destroyed or put out of action – approximately 7 percent of the total flying USMC Harrier fleet. Worse yet, the aircraft involved were the AV-B+ variant equipped with the APG-65 radar and AAQ-28 Litening II targeting pods – the most capable in the force. Given the current funding situation, it’s likely that the two damaged AV-8Bs will become spare parts “hangar queens” and never fly again. A Harrier squadron commander is dead, along with another Marine. Another nine personnel have been wounded, and the nearby Marines at Camp Freedom are now without effective fixed-wing air support. The USMC’s response to this disaster will be a telling report card on its leadership and organizational agility.”

This full article can be viewed at:  Secret Wars: What Obama and the Media Don’t Want You to Know : The Daily Witness Here’s another article about the attack published in the American Thinker:  Articles: Untold Loss: Media Blackout on Military Disaster on Obama’s Watch

-DS

Falcon:

Looks like city hall sold out the taxpayers again by giving Mr. Whittkamp a $500,000 discount on that spec. building in the Industrial Park plus unknown TIF money; so the taxpayers pay his police, fire, school and other taxes for him for who knows how many years.

Each of the seven new employees will cost taxpayer close to $75,000 and they’ll probably not be paid a livable wage.  It will probably take each of the seven 188 weeks to earn the equivalent of $75,000 @ $10 per hour or about 3.6 years to gross that much money.  Of course $10 per hour is no where near a livable wage in Burlington or West Burlington and probably not anywhere else in Iowa.

We’ll may eventually find out just how much the taxpayers are being ripped off provided there’s any sunshine left down at city hall.  Maybe we could have sold him city hall since what comes out of there is never good for taxpayers.

DS

Falcon,

The letter in reference to the Railroad Retirement System stated that the fund was entirely funded  by employees. According to the government website (link provided) employers are required to match contributions just like social security.

http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v68n2/v68n2p41.html

Railroad employees should be nervous. The more broke our government gets the more likely  their fund will be filled will with IOUs just like Social Security. I pray that doesn’t happen.

-Taxpayers pay again

Falcon,

One major error on the Ryan 2013 Budget proposal is on page 109 of the budget where it mentions the Railroad Retirement Tier 1 program. It’s my understanding the railroad retirement fund is solely funded by the railroad employees and the railroad and has never been funded by taxpayers or anyone other than railroad workers. Mr. Ryan’s budget panel apparently thinks it is or they just don’t have a clue about what they put in the bill.

If railroad personnel get more in benefits than Social Security it’s because they paid more into their retirement fund by design and again nothing to do with Social Security.

Someone should inform Mr. Ryan that The Railroad Retirement Benefit is funded by railroad employees themselves and not taxpayers and it has nothing to do with Social Security.

The below passage is found on page 109 of the proposed Ryan Budget for fiscal year 2013, House Report 112-421

Conform Railroad Retirement Tier 1 Benefits to Social Security Benefits. Tier 1 benefits for railroad retirees are supposed to mimic Social Security benefits, but they are more generous than Social Security in many ways. This option would conform Tier 1 so that its benefits would equal those of Social Security, with an estimated savings to taxpayers of $2 billion over 10 years.

What Paul Ryan is not telling the American people is that the railroad pension fund has absolutely nothing to do with taxpayers. The Railroad pension fund is completely funded by railroad workers themselves. Not one dime of taxpayer money is used to fund this pension plan. So, why would a conservative politician in Washington say otherwise? My guess is he doesn’t have a clue and neither did the writers of the bill.

It’s quite clear neither party in Washington has any concept of how to write a bill or propose a bill that’s fair and honest to the American people. Look at that ill prepared Obamacare bill the democrats signed into law when none of them even knew what was in it. Then that so called speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi say’s we’ll have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it. That’s a classic example of what class of people we have in congress misrepresenting us time and time again. Pelosi’s only concern is how much she can line her pockets before living off the taxpayer’s the rest of her life, not that she hasn’t been already.

Ryan’s budget proposal will have to be edited totally before it’s passed provided congress knows what edited means and all the ill prepared or misrepresented sections removed such as the Railroad Retirement Benefit section. Remember this is a proposal and will require a total editing job to clean it up and make it workable.

Also, the quality of people in Washington is nowhere near what it was 25 years ago on back to 1778.

-Concerned

Falcon,

A good place for Obama would be Haiti after he’s dethroned this November.  It would be interesting to see if he could fool the Haitians like he fooled so many Americans in 2008.

The poorest and most illiterate nation in the western hemisphere despite gaining their independence from the French in 1804 and their still struggling to make it work and I think Obama and all his experience would fit in just great down in Haiti more or less guaranteeing it’s continued failures.  He could also take down all his Czar’s and other misfits to help him make Haiti work, if that’s possible at all.

-Send him packing