Author Archives: Editor

About Editor

I am a long time resident of San Francisco who has long been dismayed by Newsom's neoliberal, anti-homeless, pro-authoritarian, gentrifying, hypocritical policies.

Politico: Newsom talks wealth with Musk

This conversation is really revealing!

Politico writes: But none of that was brought up on Wednesday. Musk cheerfully noted that Newsom was “one of the first to buy a Tesla Roadster back in the day” — noting he would have had to put down $100,000 to reserve one in 2007. That also means Newsom would have been one of the first Californians to buy an electric vehicle. According to data from the state’s energy commission, only 112 zero-emission vehicles had been sold by 2010.

“That was a healthy deposit you had to make,” Newsom said, joking he made the purchase “back when I had money.”

“That was a lot of money in 2007,” Musk said.

“It’s still a lot of money,” Newsom replied. “Trust me, brother, you haven’t looked at my salary … We had about the same net worth back then, 20 years ago.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/22/newsom-musk-recharge-bromance-announcement-00084060

Full transcript of Dahle versus Newsom debate!

The transcript is here:

Unfortunately, Dahle is farther to the right and even more slavishly pro-corporate than Newsom!

Newsom, when asked to admit a mistake, skirts the issue and does not talk about any political mistake or bad governance decision he had made:

Scott Shafer: All right. We are short on time, but we want to ask you a question that’s a little bit of a curveball. And, Governor, let’s start with you. Name a time in your life you were wrong about something and did a complete about face. How did you realize your mistake and what did you do to remedy it and make sure it wouldn’t happen again?

Gavin Newsom: I mean, there’s there’s a myriad of issues where that’s the case. Look, mistakes are a portal of discovery. I have a failure award in businesses I’ve started, really one of the great prides in my life is starting a business right out of college. Putting pen to paper and creating roughly 1,000 jobs at peak. One of the things I always encouraged was initiative. Risk taking, not recklessness. And if we make a mistake, we learn from that mistake and we try not to repeat it. Now, let me be specific. Over the course of my life, personally, professionally, in every way, shape or form, I’ve been iterative. There are things that I asserted that I learned from that didn’t turn out to be as clear as I had hoped or consequences intended that turned out to actually produce the results as intended.

Scott Shafer: Can you be specific?

Gavin Newsom: Dozens of them. I’ll tell you, one of the perhaps most significant ones, I have a significant learning disability. I couldn’t read or couldn’t write, and I was doing speech therapy as a kid. I thought I was dumb and I made the mistake of falling prey to that. Back of the classroom, not raising my hand, feeling other than, feeling lesser than. And that’s why I don’t like bullies. I don’t like cruelty. I don’t like people that humiliate other people. And I learned I wasn’t that person. I’ll tell you, that’s the most profound mistake I made early in my life that I did not did not learn quickly enough that all of us are unique. All of us have a unique expression, and all of us deserve dignity and respect. And as a young child, I didn’t fully embrace that or understand that. And that was a mistake.

Newsom falls radically short of California housing goals!

CalMatters reports:

Measured against the goal he set for himself, Newsom’s record is less impressive. Just 13% of the 3.5 million homes he campaigned on building have been permitted, let alone built. He’s walked back the goal many times, settling on a new target earlier this year: Cities need to have planned a combined 2.5 million homes by 2030. So, 1 million fewer homes planned for, not built, and over a longer time frame.

Newsom rejects controls on outdoor lighting!

Facts don’t matter!

The NY Times writes: A.B. 2382: Light pollution

This bill aiming to reduce light pollution would have required all outdoor lights on state properties to have anti-light pollution shields, as well as motion sensors or automatic dimming or shut-off functions to limit the amount of light they project.

Newsom said the costs associated with changing light requirements at 24,000 state buildings “may cost millions of dollars not accounted for in the budget.”

Assemblyman Alex Lee, who introduced the bill, called the veto “extremely disappointing.” “This bill would have protected our night skies and migratory species, while reducing wasteful and unnecessary electricity consumption,” Lee told The Los Angeles Times.

Gavin, the Presidential race and controversies

Evan Symon, of the California Globe, evaluates his chances. Symon writes:

But let’s push all of what he did back in. And look, I typed “Gavin Newsom controversies” into Google and got 909,000 pages back. When I was gathering links of what he had done just as Governor from the Globe’s archives, it looked like I was going into the Library of Congress. Even giving a highlight reel would still make for a small book. Suffice it to say that for every good or successful thing Newsom has backed, such as the Care not Cash program in San Francisco in the early 2000’s that replaced giving straight cash to the homeless for medical care and other health programs, there has been one other that had disastrous consequences, like extramarital affairs with wives of his own aides.

We showed another side of Con Not Cash in our 2016 post here.

Newsom’s policies for the unhoused are discussed in the Sacramento Bee here.

Blast from the Past: Mayor Newsom visits France!

We are posting this as corruption in SF is off the charts, and this French company clearly tried to use its leverage with Newsom to get a contract.

These people are so easily bought off that it is sad!

The latest scam we have in SF is with public trash can prototype locations!

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1seAG88XUfcDByrTaCjITHuZp1NCNImM&ll=37.75689811878226%2C-122.45120506543115&z=11

How San Francisco flushes away scores of millions of dollars on a stinker of a toilet contract

Will Gavin Newsom Run for President?

SFGate’s Eric Ting pontificates:

But if Biden doesn’t run, Newsom may become Chris Christie and “miss his moment” if he chooses to defer to Harris (Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis must grapple with similar questions as he considers possibly challenging Trump in 2024). Politics moves extremely fast, and Newsom himself told The Atlantic he was surprised his recent comments about the national Democratic Party struck such a nerve. 

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Newsom-presidential-run-more-likely-17255252.php

Our take has always been that Newsom is likely to run. If he wins, it will be a disaster. He is an empty suit.

If tRump or some other Republican wins, it will be even worse!

Look out below!

Does Newsom really have “zero interest” in running for president?

Politico reports:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook/2022/05/23/newsoms-presidential-window-is-narrow-he-doesnt-seem-to-mind-00034330

If Newsom truly has no presidential aspirations, his rhetoric doesn’t show it. The governor is known for bashing Republicans across the country (particularly those in Florida and Texas) and often positions California — and himself — as a national defender of liberal values. He’s not afraid to go after state and federal laws that he deems unsavory, he talks up California’s successes on national daytime television, and he posts contemplative photos of himself reading banned books to needle political opponents.

Earlier this month, following POLITICO’s report of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the governor even expressed frustration with his own political kin, saying he has felt an “enormous sense of frustration” with national Democrats as he’s watched Republicans barrel forward with their agenda.

“Where’s the party?” he said. “Why aren’t we standing up more firmly?”

At very least, it sounds like Newsom isn’t interested in challenging Harris, both of whom came up in the San Francisco political scene. But deferring to Harris means potentially delaying a run for multiple election cycles, and the further out from office he gets, the harder it could be to mount a comeback into political life.

There are a few scenarios where Newsom’s White House window gets wider. If a Republican wins in 2024, and Harris declines to run in 2028, Newsom would only be two years out of the governor’s office and a likely candidate for the top job.

The same thing could happen if Biden wins in 2024 and Harris doesn’t run in 2028, but in that case, voters may be less inclined to put a Democrat in power for the third term in a row.

Will this woman run for president? Republicans are already gunning for her!