Tag Archives: responsibilities

Leftist School Districts Child Abuse

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When the Supreme Court ruled in Mahoud et al v Taylor et al, that schools may not prevent parents, via any means at all, from opting their children out of school events, including lessons, involving LGBTQ-related themes, here are Leftist-run schools and their Progressive-Democrat politicians deliberately ignoring that ruling and denying parents precisely that option.

  • Suburban Boston’s Lexington Public Schools refused to show parents curricula in advance while demanding they identify specific lessons for opting out, and claimed books that simply promote “tolerance” are exempt, according to a “Catch-22” lawsuit.
  • California Attorney General Rob Bonta [D] convinced a federal appeals court [the activist judge-dominated 9th Circuit] that forcing school districts to actively mislead parents about their children’s gender identity was not covered by Mahmoud at all because it doesn’t involve “curricular decisions.”
  • Colorado’s Cherry Creek School District…us[ed] an old standby—lunch with a teacher—to discuss LGBTQ themes without parental approval.

It’s true that the Supreme Court ruling is a temporary injunction pending final adjudication of the underlying case as that case makes its way through the courts; however, it remains in effect, and from that it is the law of the land.

This is the lawlessness of the Left overlying their insistent child abuse with “sex” lessons far beyond their years and deliberately outside the children’s parents’ rights and obligations.

“Shouldn’t We Care?”

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A MarketWatch op-ed writer is worried about grown, adult American citizens having more retirement funds in our IRAs than in our 401(k)s.

The shift from 401(k)s to IRAs moves employees’ money to a different regulatory environment. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which covers 401(k) plans, requires plan sponsors to operate as fiduciaries who always act in the best interest of plan participants.
In contrast, the standards of conduct for broker-dealers selling IRA investments are much less protective than the ERISA fiduciary duties of loyalty and prudence, which have consistently been characterized by the courts as “the highest known to the law.”
In addition, in the 401(k) environment, much greater emphasis is placed on the disclosure of fees in an understandable format than is the case for IRAs. And most important, 401(k)s place much more emphasis than IRAs on keeping the funds in the plan until retirement.

Those are, no doubt, useful items and anyone investing for his own retirement should care about them. The problem arises, though, when the system—here employer 401(k)s—uses these to interfere with an employee-investor’s decisions regarding what is supposed to be his own money.

As the opinion writer notes in her piece, withdrawals from either program that are made prematurely or outside of a very few exceptions (there are fewer in 401(k)s than in IRAs), are subject to a 10% tax penalty in addition to Federal and State income tax assessments. Those guardrails and limits are well-known to us Americans, and they’re all we need to make our own decisions regarding our money. If our decisions are ill-informed, that’s on us, or should be.

The opinion-writer closed her piece closed with this:

Shouldn’t we care that only 45% of assets in the private sector are protected by ERISA? And what should we do about it?

No, we should not care. We do not need Big Brother constantly looking over our shoulders, constantly using that perch to interfere with our decisions.

Americans are too dumb to manage our own fiscal affairs? One way to try to push that on us is to keep interfering with our decisions instead of letting us make our own mistakes and—critically importantly—learn from them.

That leads into what we should do about it. TL;DR: nothing. Complete answer: nothing at all. Stay out of our way.

“aren’t subject to Congressional appropriations”

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In the house editorial, The Wall Street Journal editors wrote about the burgeoning tax revenues accruing to the Federal government over the first third of the present fiscal year, the reduction in spending in several government departments and agencies, and the burgeoning spending on welfare entitlement programs.

Then they added this risible claim:

…continuing boom in the giant retirement and healthcare entitlements that aren’t subject to Congressional appropriations.

The editors might want to review their junior high Civics class notes. Here’s our Constitution’s requirement for Federal spending:

Art I, Sect 9: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law

All spending is subject to Congressional appropriations, and that includes “retirement and healthcare entitlements.” There are no caveats in that Section’s clause, no “except for programs inconvenient to alter or eliminate.”

Cutting spending on entitlements may be politically difficult but that’s not what the editors claimed. If the editors can’t find their notes, they need to listen better to their junior high interns when those kids brief them in preparation for expounding on government spending.

Still a Bankrupt Message

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Rahm Emanuel, late of the Obama White House and the Chicago Mayor’s Mansion, wrote of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s golden opportunity in the Tuesday Wall Street Journal‘s editorial pages.

Many of his points are valid, and Republicans and Conservatives ignore them at their and our nation’s peril. But then he closed his piece with this:

The next 10 months will be about branding Republicans in Congress as Mr Trump’s enablers. Beyond that, we need to focus on speaking to the interests and sensibilities of those who considered or took the Faustian bargain Mr Trump offered them last year and are uncomfortable today with all the chaos they got in return for little economic benefit.

Here is the Republicans’ and Conservatives’ golden opportunity, if they will find some backbone and make use of it. Enablers. Faustian bargain. Branding. This is Party’s sole and constantly delivered message: everything anti-Trump, and those not for Party are just ignorant or foolish or both. Party is against a man and against millions of average Americans.

Party has not a word, not a syllable, about the policies its members would work for and how those policies would strengthen our nation and its security and increase the prosperity of us citizens. [S]peaking to the interests and sensibilities of those who are so ignorant or foolish as to be suckered by the man on which Party focuses its enmity? And say what, exactly? Even as Emanual warns his Party against its common error of smug “I told you so,” here he is recommending Party do exactly that. Addressing the interests and sensibilities of those he says are disgruntled or uncomfortable says nothing about what Party would intend to do to satisfy those disgruntlements.

Republicans’ and Conservatives’ golden opportunity consists of this, and it’s simple and straightforward. Don’t get sucked into a contest of personal opprobrium. Point out Party’s focus on the empty ad hominem of personal opprobrium, briefly; point out the lack of policies and policy goals on which Party campaigns, briefly. Then spend the large bulk of their messaging on their own policies and policy goals; how those enhance our nation and especially the lives of us citizens, individually and as groups; and be specific, fleshing out the glittering generalities with the specifics of carrying them out and the specific, measurable benefits to Americans that would ensue, including anticipated time frames for their coming to fruition and any pain points that might come from the transitions to those goals.

Being specific, of course, invites criticism and attack; staying with glittering generalities ducks them. This is where the backbones of Republicans and Conservatives come in, backbones that too many claiming to be Republican or Conservative have for too long lacked. Specifics are necessary to make the claims concrete and so to attract voters. This is where these wonders must, finally, step up.

Hardly Defiance

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reduced its vaccines for children recommendation from a schedule of 18 diseases to a recommendation of 11. The American Academy of Pediatrics still recommends children be vaccinated against 18 diseases. The Wall Street Journal calls the AAP defiant.

No.

HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr, and HHS’ CDC have all along recommended patients and parents of child patients consult with their physicians on ailments, treatments, and vaccines. Kennedy has emphasized that recommendation while he has had CDC scale back the recommendations.

Parents are heeding that CDC recommendation and are consulting. Pediatricians and their medical association are acting like physicians and treating their child patients rather than parroting those ancillary CDC recommendations.