Are you watching?

Are you watching what is happening to our country on the southern border? 

Are you explaining to your children what Pres. Joe Biden is doing to destroy the U.S.A.? 

Are you explaining what the Democrats in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are doing to this country?

Are you explaining to your children the kind of country they are going to grow up in, if the trend is not stopped and reversed?

You got the $1,400; right? Plus money for other family members? Have you explained to your children what their cost is going to be for that "free" money?

Are you explaining to your children, the students in Richland 2 School District, that Nothing is free?

Who will pay for the $1,400 of "free" money? Who will pay for all the pork (90% of the $1.9T stimulus bill)? Are you explaining to your children what is even in that bill, now Act?

Start by explaining the cost of money borrowed from Chase Bank and Discover, when you don't pay your credit card statement in full every month and on time. Then explain about payday loans and pawn shops (400% interest). Next time they want to borrow some money, loan it to them at 400% - until they understand what that really means.

Ask them about the increase in the price of gas for the family car in the past few weeks. Better fill that buggy up now, during the little dip in gas prices.

Ask them if they understand what a $15.00/hour minimum wage would really mean, in terms of lost jobs and reduced hours for the low-paid employees. 

I doubt your students will learn any of these important things in our "premier" school district. Are there classes in basic money management? They'll be busy getting drenched by cultural diversity, inclusion, equity, socialism, racial injustice, police brutality. And why men playing in girls' sports is okay. 

They'll all know who George Floyd. Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice were. 

But they won't be able to tell you who retired St. Louis Police Captain (retired) David Dorn was. Or name any cops (white or black) who have been assassinated or killed in the line-of-duty.  Or name very many of the Founding Fathers. Or recognize the names of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

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R2 School Board ignores community member request

On October 13, 2020 I addressed the School Board and asked two questions about The 1619 Project. I requested a response.

Does anyone agree that a 4½-month wait for a response is too long?

On March 1, 2021, I sent the following email to the School Board:

Members of the board and trustees-elect McKie and Holmes,

At the School Board meeting on October 13, 2020, I addressed the board and requested answers to two questions. My questions were:

To what extent is The 1619 Project being introduced, taught or discussed in any classrooms in the Richland 2 School District?

If it is not yet in the Richland 2 School District, will the School Board be consulted before it is taught?

I'll add this third question. Is the book A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, being used anywhere in Richland 2 schools?

Will you please provide me with answers to my questions by March 13, 2021, which will be five months after I asked two of them?

Sincerely,

Gus Philpott

As you will read, I requested a response by March 13, 2021. No one on the board and no one from District bothered to extend the courtesy of acknowledging my message or to reply to it.

On Friday, March 12, 2021 I submitted a Freedom of Information Act Request to the School District. That started clocks ticking on response time. The School District cannot legally disregard a FOIA Request. 

If no response is received by April 5, 2021, the next step will be taken.

So, PARENTS, what are your children telling you about The 1619 Project, when they come home from school or step away from the computer screens. Does any of them read from Howard Zinn's textbook that is being used in many schools now in the U.S.?

McKie and Mosby have this in common

What do Amelia McKie, trustee-elect of the Richland 2 School Board, and Marilyn Mosby, Maryland State's Attorney for Baltimore, have in common?

Each owes $45,000 or more to a government.

As has been written here for many months, McKie owes $51,000+ to the South Carolina Ethics Commission, and the Commission filed a judgment in Richland County Common Pleas Court to secure the debt. Her debt totaled $51,800 as of February 8, 2021.

FoxNews reports today that Mosby and her husband, Nick Mosby, who is president of the Baltimore City Council, owe $45,000 to the IRS. IRS filed a lien against Mosby's home in October 2020 for unpaid Federal taxes.

The South Carolina Department of Revenue is charged with collecting money owed to the State. The lien against McKie was filed on July 10, 2019, and there is no recorded activity in the court since the filing date. Is the SC DOR doing anything at all on this collection?

What could the SC DOR do? It could foreclose on the family home. It could garnish McKie's pay from Richland 2 School District. It could place a lien against McKie's automobile and other assets in her name. 

Why hasn't McKie paid even a dime toward her debt? 

Should a person with this amount of debt and this type of debt hold a fiduciary position involving multi-millions of dollars of assets and a $300,000,000 budget of the school district?

Jamie Raub brings up old, inaccurate newspaper article

Does anyone read the NextDoor.com website for northeast Columbia information?

There was quite a thread about pit bulls this week and it finally got shut down.

Today a resident in the Jacob's Creek neighborhood complained about kids cutting across her lawn and littering. I added what I thought would be read as a sarcastic comment that she should chain up a pit bull in her front yard.

Then someone I don't know, Jamie Raub of Briarcliffe Estates, decided to take a pot shot at me with

"What a shocker...Gus Philpott you continue to show what a class act you are https://www.postandcourier.com/free-times/news/local_and_state_news/school-board-member-alleges-harassment-after-ethics-complaints/article_c483ad91-346d-5653-9515-cf387c86e471.html"

I replied to her:

"Jamie Raub Thank you for referencing that Post & Courier article of 3/29/2019. I had not seen it before. The article contains numerous incorrect statements. Notably, I did NOT say, "Having not filed, they should not take office, as both were not properly elected,” What I did say was, "Thus, having not filed the required statement (SEI), neither was eligible to take office." Check the school board 3/12/19 meeting video at 32:30."

I tried to add "I will contact the reporter. I considered having Ms. Holmes charged with filing a false police report, but I decided not to do so. If you are interested in the correct story, see www.Richland2.info 

"McKie and Holmes are still illegitimately on the Richland 2 School Board. They have never taken the oath of office legally.

"So, I wonder, are you interested in Facts or the Truth? Are laws important?" 

but NextDoor didn't like it the rest of my comment.

I reviewed the video of the March 12, 2019, school board meeting and realized that was two years ago.

What has the Richland 2 School District done to correct the problem? Absolutely nothing.

One statement of mine stood out. I told the board that if they did not fix the problem, then they were complicit in allowing McKie and Holmes to continue as board members.

When board members knowingly and wilfully disregard laws, I believe they have no coverage under Officers and Directors Liability Insurance purchased by the District. They will be on their own and will have to defend themselves at personal expense.

The legal option open to me is to, at my personal expense, get leave from a Circuit Court judge and then file legal action against McKie and Holmes at the S.C. Supreme Court for usurping public office. 

It should be an open-and-shut case, because their Oath of Office affidavit is dated three weeks before the date of their Statements of Economic Interests Reports.

My thanks to Jamie Raub for bringing this up. 

Do State Voting Laws Matter?

Is it important to protect fair and legal elections? For yourself? For your kids and students? For theirs?

Read this analysis of H.R. 1, Nancy Pelosi's "For the People Act".

Then call your out-of-state friends and ask them to call their U.S. Senators and ask them to vote against this Bill. Especially to call their Democrat U.S. Senators. I think we can depend on Sen. Tim Scott and Sen. Lindsey Graham to vote against it, but contact them, too

Can't you hear the train coming down the track? It's like we are sitting in a school bus, stuck on the railroad tracks. The gates are coming down; the warning lights and bells are flashing; we can see the headlight on the locomotive. We have only a limited amount of time to stop it.

Act now!

Who is the author of that article? Hans von Spakovsky is "an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative." Source: https://www.dailysignal.com/author/hansvonspakovsky/

Kids heading for college?

Parents, if you have kids heading for college, get ready to have "the talk" with them. No, I don't mean the talk about keeping your hands on the steering wheel when a cop stops you and not making any furtive moves.

I mean the talk about what happens behind closed doors in those co-ed college dorms.

Read the story following this headline: "Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights".

Published on the daily email message of The Heritage Foundation, a respected conservative organization, that article is here.

Is Due Process important? Of course, it is. And it's the law.

During the last week The State newspaper has reported on a college student who was accused of raping a female student with whom he had previously had sexual relations. The school found him, in effect, not guilty. After the appeal period passed, the girl raised her complaint again. With no new evidence, the boy was found guilty. He is fighting that. Was that fair? Can you just whine until you win?