While we have be obsessed with the Trump conviction, which is fading from the news with remarkable rapidity as it seems to have had little effect on polling – revealing much, other things have happened. But before we get to that news a couple of more commentaries on that conviction are worth the read. Yesterday I commented on Trump’s conviction being a result of the threat he presents to the administrative state. Dr. John Marini from Claremont sees me and raises me. And, of course, Andrew C. McCarthy laments the damage done to the rule of law by that conviction. But that said, let’s move to other news.

Is there pure science anymore? A story appeared last week about a new discovery regarding the element promethium. Fascinating science about which most of you do not care – deeply esoteric stuff. But in its initial bullet-point summary of the story AP(Yahoo) writes, “the discovery could make protection of this rare element easier” – I had no idea it was threatened. This is the knee jerk use of a word, entirely inapplicable to the circumstances. This is a political agenda (“environmental protection”) imposed on a story about pure science for no darn good reason other than an editor that does not have a clue about the underlying story and does have an agenda.

Years ago, I wrote of the consumption of the once great magazine Scientific American by politics. That magazine has now descended into the dark netherworld, beyond politics into moral evil.

Can we be honest about what climate change is actually all about? It’s a wealth transfer scheme in science clothing, that’s all it is. This has now become most obvious in this development, “Vermont becomes 1st state to enact law requiring oil companies pay for damage from climate change.” That is simply ludicrous. IF (huge, big, boldface “IF”) we presume that oil is damaging the climate, and we IF presume we can somehow quantify this damage, how in the heck do we hold oil companies responsible for it? The current thinking is that climate change is due to the burning of oil, something oil consumers do, not oil producers. Furthermore, I thought coal was the real bug-a-boo, why are they not passing similar laws to go after the coal industry? (Easy answer – shallow pockets.) It’s naked now. Climate change is not science at all – it’s wealth transfer.

But while we are on the topic this Rich Lowry piece is delicious. The administration gave Transporation Secretary Pete Buttigieg $7.5 billion (with a “B”) to build electric car charging stations twop years ago. To date they have built 8! That is amazingly slow progress. Why so slow?

According to a Politico report on the slow rollout of the charging stations, “States and the charger industry blame the delays mostly on the labyrinth of new contracting and performance requirements they have to navigate to receive federal funds.”

In other words, the administrative state is standing in the way of the administrative state. If nothing else that is good for a laugh.

But when it comes to folly it is hard to top this story. The zero-percent down mortgage is making a comeback. Does anyone remember 2008? Yes, the housing market is a mess, but this is a way to make the mess bigger. It’s been proven and evidenced in history that this is a bad idea – a really bad idea – a horrendous idea. This is a mark of desperation – an effort to correct folly by more folly.

This election cannot come soon enough. The question is will it matter? We have to elect people with some common sense to even have a hope of righting the ship, but with the administrative state playing ball this way, and given its massive scale, can we get the job done?

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