In 2020, about 20% of Black citizens voted in Vermont’s general election, well short of a Census-estimated 70% of white Vermonters. That’s the second largest gap in the country. 

A rule progressing through the Scott Administration will require that all Vermont cars, SUVs, minivans and light duty trucks sold or registered in Vermont must be “California compliant”, that is, be electric or possibly fuel cell powered, by the 2035 model year. The state’s environmental machine believes getting rid of carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles will somehow arrest the menace of climate change. It won’t, but it will exterminate consumer choice of what to drive. And of course there’ll be no legislative vote.

The further Vermont goes down the road to legalized state-controlled marijuana marketing, the more interesting surprises come to the surface. The most recent was published by Kevin McCallum in Seven Days three weeks ago. Here’s the headline: “Vermont’s Electrical Ratepayers Are Providing Generous Subsidies to Indoor Cannabis Growers”.

The progressive think tank Energy Innovation reports that California “is not on track to achieve its climate goals. Compared to historical trends, California will need to more than triple the pace of emissions reductions to hit its 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.” And this despite enduring an electric blackout in 2020 and narrowly avoiding a blackout this month, due to heavier reliance on solar.

Our collective mind burns with images of the Twin Towers collapsing on September 11, 2001, thousands running for their lives from billows of noxious dust, and New York City shrouded in black smoke and ash. This cataclysm of terror has been imprinted in our cultural memory by gut-wrenching personal stories, videos, photographs, vigils, and memorials. But memories and artefacts alone do not constitute the brutal legacy of  9/11. 

​​In EAI’s August survey asking, “How do you anticipate housing shortage situation to progress?” 82% of respondents chose, “This is a long term, self-inflicted trend that is here to stay unless Vermont officials reform local zoning laws and Act 250 restrictions.”

The Left has made “saving our democracy” a leading election year national concern. But democracy is safe – what is threatened is the Rule of Law, and it has been endangered by Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden alike.

My friend of ‘many years, Bob Moffitt, formerly Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, recently offered some interesting news about the United Kingdom’s government run National Health Service.

Why settle for new carbon taxes on just gasoline, diesel, and home heating fuels when you can apply a carbon tax to EVERYTHING! Implementing an “economy wide” “cap and invest” (which is the current euphemism for a carbon tax) program is the latest curlicue fluorescent lightbulb to go off over the heads of the twenty-three zealots charged with totally restructuring our economy around greenhouse gas reduction.

Last year the Michigan legislature approved two strong school choice bills that. established a Michigan Student Opportunity Scholarship (SOS) program. Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer vetoed them.  But the state constitution allows the Legislature to override a governor’s veto if enough petition signatures are collected to get the bill back to the Legislature. If passed again, the bills could not be re-vetoed by the governor.