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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (102348)	4/4/2011 8:51:04 PM
From: tonto	1 Recommendation Respond to of 224738

All elections are important. Nothing unusual about tomorrow.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (102348)	4/4/2011 9:31:11 PM
From: lorne	8 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224738

little kenny..."I understand there is an important judicial election in Wisconsin tomorrow."... As I understand it you commie guys are trying to get a commie judge placed in supreme court so you commie guys can continue to destroy wisconsin? Kind of like hussein obama installing a couple of commie judges on US supreme court so he is better able to destroy the USA from within. Is that whats going on??

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (102348)	4/4/2011 10:49:49 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224738

Did you plant this Ken? latimesblogs.latimes.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (102348)	4/5/2011 7:24:50 AM
From: lorne	3 Recommendations Respond to of 224738

kenny...You really need to make an effort to try and grasp what this article is saying,,,it would require some logic on your part so you may fail here? When pols manipulate the data April 05, 2011 Thomas Sowell wnd.com When someone gives you a check and the bank informs you that there are insufficient funds, who do you get mad at? In your own life, you get mad at the guy who gave you a check that bounced, not at the bank. But, in politics, you get mad at whoever tells you that there is no money. One of the secrets of the growth of the welfare state is that politicians get a lot of mileage out of making promises, without setting aside enough money to fulfill those promises. When Congress votes for all sorts of benefits, without voting for enough taxes to pay for them, they get the support of those who have been promised the benefits, without getting grief from the taxpayers. It's strictly win-win as far as the welfare-state politicians are concerned. But it is strictly lose-lose, big-time, for the country, as deficits skyrocket. Anyone who says that we don't have the money to pay what was promised is accused of trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare or Obamacare – or whatever other unfunded promises have been made. It is like blaming the bank for saying that the check bounced. Thomas Sowell's latest book covers the deliberate destruction of this nation's values -- order your copy of "Dismantling America" It is the same story at the state level as in Washington. The lavish pensions promised to members of public sector unions cannot continue to be paid because the money is just not there. But who are the unions mad at? Those who say that the money is not there. How far short are the states? It varies from one state to another. It also varies with how large a rate of return the state gets on its investments with the inadequate amount of money that has been set aside to cover its promised pensions. A front-page story on the March 28 issue of Investor's Business Daily showed plainly, with bar graphs, how big Florida's shortfall is under various rates of return on that state's investments. Florida's own estimate of its pension fund's shortfall is based on assuming that they will receive a rate of return of 7.75 percent. But what if it turns out that they don't get that high a return? A 6 percent rate of return would more than triple the size of Florida's unfunded liability for its employees' pension. The actual rate of return Florida has received over the past decade has been only 2.6 percent. In other words, by simply assuming a far higher future rate of return on their investments than they have received in the past, Florida politicians can deceive the public as to how deep a hole the state's finances are in. Political games like this are not confined to Florida. State budgets and federal budgets are not records of facts. They are projections based on assumptions. Just by manipulating a few assumptions, politicians can create a scenario that bears no resemblance to reality. The "savings" to be made by instituting Obamacare is a product of this kind of manipulation of assumptions. Even when the people who turn out the budget projections do an honest job, they are working with the assumptions given to them by the politicians. The fact that the end results carry the imprimatur of the Congressional Budget Office – or of some comparable state agency or reputable private accounting firm – means absolutely nothing. When Florida arbitrarily assumes that it is going to get a future rate of return on its pension fund investment that is roughly three times what its past returns have been, that is the same nonsense as when the feds assume that Congress will cut half a billion dollars out of Medicare to finance Obamacare. We would probably be better off if there were no Congressional Budget Office to lend its credibility to data based on hopelessly unrealistic assumptions fed to them by politicians. One of the reasons why a federal "balanced budget" amendment is unlikely to do what many of its advocates claim is that a budget is just a plan for the future. It does not have to bear any resemblance to the realities of either the past or the future. We do not need reassurances that do not reassure, whether these reassurances are in numbers or in words. No small part of the reason for the economic collapse we have been through is that federally designated rating agencies reassured investors that many mortgage-backed securities were safe, when they were not. Not only investors, but the whole economy, would have been better off without these reassurances. "Caveat emptor" would be better advice for both investors and voters.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (102348)	4/5/2011 10:32:44 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224738

High winds, rain, hit South; at least 6 killed Photo: AP== global warming kennyboy ???? JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — At least six people died in the South as fast-moving spring storms packing high winds, hail and lightning blew through the region, uprooting trees and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands, including in metro Atlanta. The storms were part of a system that cut a wide swath from the Mississippi River across the Southeast to Georgia and the Carolinas on Monday and early Tuesday. Skies were clearing behind the system Tuesday, but tornado watches remained in effect in eastern North and South Carolina as the storms appeared to head out to sea. A father and son were killed when a tree fell onto a home in Butts County in central Georgia, Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Lisa Janak said. The sheriff's office there reports that the 28-year-old man and the boy were killed early Tuesday when a tree limb crashed onto the bed where they were sleeping. Advertisement A woman and another child in the home were able to escape, Jackson Mayor Charlie Brown said. Brown said the storm's devastation was the worst the community had seen in 30 or 40 years. "I would say weeks, a minimum of weeks for us to be able to clean up our community," Brown said. Farther south, a 45-year-old man was found dead under debris after a mobile home in Dodge County was ripped from its foundation, according to a news release from the Dodge County Sheriff's Office. Janak said there had been a possible tornado in that county. A death was also reported in Colquitt County, Janak said. "Damage reports are coming in and I'm sure more will come in when daylight comes," Janak said early Tuesday. About 20 possible tornadoes were reported around the region, according to the National Weather Service. In Memphis, fire officials said an 87-year-old man found dead in his home Monday was electrocuted by a downed power line. In southern Mississippi, a 21-year-old man was killed when his car struck a tree that had fallen across a road, Copiah County coroner Ellis Stuart said. The storms were moving across the Carolinas early Tuesday, knocking down trees and causing power outages. Power outages were also reported Tuesday in states farther north, including Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia. In western Kentucky, seven people working at a plant suffered minor injuries Monday when a possible tornado hit. Christian County Emergency Management Director Randy Graham said about three dozen people who usually work in the area of the Toyoda Gosei Automotive Sealing Kentucky that was struck by the storm were at the other end of the building for their lunch break when it hit. "We're fortunate not to have any serious injuries or death," he said. The county is seeking a disaster declaration based on the damage at the plant. He said about 120 to 130 people were there when a front wall partially collapsed and a side wall and roof torn out. Strong winds ripped away part of the roof of an elementary school gymnasium in Ashland City, Tenn., but officials said no children were injured. Most of the storm damage in eastern Tennessee was caused by high winds, according to the National Weather Service. Winds gusting to about 50 mph blew down trees and power lines across north Alabama before heading to Georgia on Monday. The National Weather Service recorded wind gusts up to 49 mph at the Huntsville, Ala., airport. In DeKalb County east of Atlanta, meteorologists report 1-inch hail and storms packed high winds of 30 to 50 mph in some places Monday. Hundreds of lightning strikes were reported. The storms came on the heels of the 37th anniversary of the worst recorded outbreak of tornadoes in U.S. history, in which 148 twisters hit 13 states across the South and Midwest on April 3-4 in 1974.