Elon Musk’s wealth distribution idea, ‘anti-racist’ math scam and other commentary

Health watch: RFK Jr.’s Herbicide Debacle 

It seems the “RFK Jr.-led Make America Healthy Again commission is planning to chicken out of a crusade against glyphosate, an herbicide that the HHS secretary has argued causes cancer,” explains The Free Press’ River Page.

The Environmental Protection Agency “has repeatedly concluded that glyphosate,” a k a Roundup, “is safe if used according to label directions,” but “in May, the MAHA commission specifically called out glyphosate” in a report that was “effectively, a list of problems” with solutions to come in a second report. But banning glyphosate “could cost farmers nearly $2 billion.”

And thus, “two weeks ago, an EPA official” said “the unreleased report was going to state that glyphosate is safe after all.” “This is what happens when the ideals of MAHA collide with a hugely powerful corner of the MAGA base” — farmers.

Schools beat: The ‘Anti-Racist’ Math Scam

Renaissance Technologies billionaire Jim Simons sent much of his charitable donations to math and science research, but his daughter Liz is instead “supercharging a movement to remake K-12 mathematics education according to social justice principles,” reports Lee Fang at RealClearInvestigatons.

The goal: “to motivate disadvantaged students while dispensing with the traditional features of math,” like numbers — even though “no credible research” shows this approach improves performance.

With the Gates Foundation joining in, billionaires are pushing lunacy like “elevating DEI practices and anti-racist activism into all math instruction”  — even as they’re met with “sharp criticism from parents and educators” because approaches “that have increased rather than decreased academic rigor” have seen “notable improvements in black student performance.” 

Anti-trust alert: Lobbyists Rule at Justice 

“Genuine MAGA reformers” at the Justice Department are pitted against “MAGA-in-name-only lobbyists,” frets former Antitrust Division lawyer Roger P. Alford at UnHerd.

The pseudo-MAGA lobbyists — enabled by the attorney general’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, and acting Associate AG Stanley Woodward — end run those who “strive to remain true to President Trump’s populist message.”

There’s “nothing wrong with lobbying done the right way,” but with legal settlements worked out at booze-filled lunches, these swamp creatures “are violating fundamental moral principles.” 

Liberal: Dems Must Do Better Than Newsom

Gavin Newsom “wants to be president,” grumbles Michael Baharaeen at The Liberal Patriot, and “has all but crowned himself the leader” of the Trump Resistance. But “Democrats would do well not to allow their anger at Trump” get the better of them and back a “candidate with many of his own vulnerabilities” just because he’s “willing to throw punches at Republicans.” 

Newsom’s national appeal is “quite limited”: He’s “struggled” as governor, with California suffering “net population loss” thanks largely to the state’s “unaffordability.”

He’s spent his “career in a deep-blue state” and as the “executive of by far its most liberal major city,” when Democrats need swing voters who’ll be deeply skeptical of a “blue-state governor” who’s “failed to adequately handle the issues they care about most.”

From the right: AI’s No Excuse for More Welfare

Tesla’s Elon Musk, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and other high rollers “envision a ‘massive wealth-redistribution system’ to placate worries over technology displacing human work,” warns The Wall Street Journal’s Jason L. Riley.

But “universal basic income” is an old, bad idea.

Sure, “the economic uncertainty surrounding AI” lends “understandable appeal” to “the idea of a social insurance program in the form of a minimum level of income for everyone.”

Argh: Since “the early days” of America’s “war on poverty,” it seems we’ve lost the understanding that “you alleviate privation by reducing dependency on the government and creating incentives to become more productive.”

Fact is, “taking from workers to give to those who refuse to work is a recipe for resentment and a bumper crop of layabouts.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board