This is getting ridiculous. All this shit does is just divide us more.
State pensions will divest foreign investments because of the actions of foreign governments. I've never heard of state pensions divesting domestic investments because of the actions of other state governments, which is what the Comptroller is aiming for with the review.
Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot, vice chairman of the $52.7 billion Maryland State Retirement & Pensions System, Baltimore, is calling on the system's executive management to review "all relationships that we have with businesses" in Alabama following the latter state's restrictive abortion bill signed into law Wednesday.
In a Facebook post Thursday, Mr. Franchot, a Democrat, said the review will include a full inventory of assets that are invested in Alabama-based companies, as well as all investment managers, brokers and consultants that are headquartered or have regional offices in the state. "I will ask that this review and full inventory of business relationships be presented to the Board of Trustees on an expedited basis, so that we can hopefully initiate the process of full divestment from the state of Alabama," he said. ...
While the review takes place, Mr. Franchot said in his post that he will ask that no system employees or trustees travel to Alabama under any circumstances ā "be it for professional conferences or meetings with current or prospective investment partners. It is my hope that this travel restriction would be replicated throughout Maryland state government as a whole."
PIOnline : Error Page
Dear
Toro
The need to segregate spending between the left leaning political religion of the Democrats
and the right leaning political religion of the Republicans
reminds me of the split between Catholics and Protestants.
This is a necessary split to allow DEFUNDING of religious platforms.
But these "political religious factions" should have been kept SEPARATE from the government
to begin with. So all this division would remain natural between parties as religious
organizations that members should have free choice to fund, to follow, or not.
The problem is that we allowed these parties to infiltrate and impose their political
religion, beliefs and ideologies into public policy, so that the entire public is affected by their policy and funding preferences.
There is nothing wrong with people choosing freely what beliefs and policies
they agree to fund and follow. That is natural for people to congregate based
on which affiliation and beliefs they identity with, as with religious organizations
that remain separate from govt and individual free choice whether to participate or contribute.
Had political parties also kept their beliefs separate from government as a free choice
among their members to pursue for themselves, the way other religious organizations do, it would be perfectly natural for such groups to separate funding where they disagree.
This would not impose on any other people or groups with equal rights and freedom to choose which affiliation to support.
This is why the founding principles in the Constitution, from the start,
sought to separate GOVERNMENT from RELIGION -- to AVOID and PREVENT this very type of conflict!
We let the parties go too far in pushing political beliefs through Govt.
Then, when other people and parties disagree, and these parties
exercise the freedom to defund and depart from biased agenda
because of "differences in beliefs," it interferes with govt and the public.
Because BELIEFS of one party vs. another should NEVER HAVE BEEN
INSTITUTED through GOVT to begin with. This is why the principle
exists about Govt remaining neutral and never getting mixed with
religious beliefs in the first place! We need to admit that the political
parties are the equivalent of political religions espousing political beliefs,
and acknowledge why such biases in beliefs don't belong in govt for this reason!
