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[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]
I’ve been appalled by Gavin Newsom for years, but to read Ellie Gardey Holmes’s powerful and unflinching new book Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power is to find one’s contempt for this hideous creature skyrocketing. If he has any redeeming qualities, any special gifts, any attributes that might illuminate an admirable and recognizably human side, there’s no sign of them here. This is a man who, despite having no discernible talent for governance or anything else, was lucky enough to be born into one well-off family – his great-grandfather co-founded the Bank of Italy, which later became the Bank of America – and to be, from earliest childhood, a sort of honorary member of an even richer family, the Gettys, his father being best friends with oil magnate Gordon Getty, who was like a second father to young Gavin.
Both men, his biological father and his second father, used their considerable influence from the beginning to help Gavin rise to power. Indeed, as surely as any Kennedy or Bush, Gavin Newsom was born into a political machine and bred to be a politician. After he and Getty played a big role in helping Willie Brown to get elected mayor of San Francisco, Brown named Newsom to the city’s Parking and Traffic Commission. Soon he was promoted to the Board of Supervisors, a post he held from 1997 to 2004. “Because of his lack of qualifications,” writes Gardey Holmes, “Newsom entered office entirely indebted to Willie Brown.” Observers referred to him, in fact, as “an appendage of Willie Brown.” Quick sidebar in the midst of this tale of political advancement: when his mother was dying, Gavin was pretty much AWOL, although he was present when she underwent assisted suicide – which, at the time, was illegal in California. Others had been prosecuted for their participation in such actions; Gavin was not, a foreshadowing of many other occasions on which he would be treated as exempt from the rules governing the behavior of ordinary mortals.
In 2003 he was elected mayor. One of his first acts was to authorize the issuing of marriage licenses for same-sex couples, even though he had no power to do any such thing. He even performed some of the marriages himself. This cynical move (which even California’s two Democratic Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, opposed) was a cheap stunt, carried out at the expense of gullible gays, whose marriages were soon enough ruled invalid by the state Supreme Court – but it had the desired effect. It made him a national figure and it won him the esteem of the mainstream media. Bob Simon told him on 60 Minutes that he might well have “set a record for instant fame in this country.”
From the beginning of his life in “public service” – that laughable term – Newsom’s vanity and ambition were flagrantly palpable. Although the New York Times described him during his mayoralty as the subject of “local adoration,” some San Francisco insiders resented his brazen focus “on self-aggrandizement and personal publicity” and his relative indifference to the city’s growing problems on a variety of fronts. Routinely, he stole credit for other people’s initiatives and acted as if he were exempt from the rules. A police officer drove him to his wedding in Montana in his official SUV – a definite no-no.
After two terms as mayor he had his eye, naturally, on the Governor’s Mansion – but polls convinced him to run for Lieutenant Governor instead. He spent two terms in that job, too, but hated it: he had no real power, no real staff, no real budget, and he felt disrespected by his boss, Jerry Brown. The initiatives he did support were destructive “progressive” bilge of the first water: for example, he was the only statewide elected official to support Proposition 47, which converted many felonies to misdemeanors, helping to set off the still ongoing rash of shoplifting that has made San Francisco, particularly, an international joke. For the most part, however, instead of addressing the state’s problems he put his energies into enhancing his national profile. He became a fixture on shows like Real Time with Bill Maher. He also wrote – or at least signed his name to – a book calling for the transformation of government by means of “digital technology”; the book’s argument didn’t make much sense, and even Stephen Colbert, usually a reliable left-wing shill, dismissed it as “bullshit.”
And then, inevitably ,in 2019, Newsom became governor, thanks in no small part to massive donations from the Gettys and Pritzkers and his role as “the darling of the upper class.” California was already on the skids, but Newsom accelerated the process. He pulled National Guard troops from the southern border, saying that “[t]he border ‘emergency’ is a manufactured crisis and California will not be part of this political theater.” He even had the state sue President Trump over his border emergency declaration, which according to Newsom was nothing but an expression of “division, xenophobia, [and] racism.” Instead of canceling one of the state’s notorious boondoggles – the program to build a staggeringly expensive high-speed rail line from San Francisco to San Diego – he shortened the planned route, so that the trains would run only between Merced and Bakersfield. This made the rail line an even more ridiculous proposition, but Newsom’s priority was not to provide a useful means of public transportation but to keep the state from having to return the federal money appropriated for the project to a government run by Donald Trump, who from the beginning of his governorship Newsom singled out as his personal enemy – an action that profoundly enhanced his popularity among California Democrats. Indeed, instead of seriously dealing with California’s jobs and education crises, Newsom focused relentlessly on attacking Trump. A hundred days into his governorship, he bragged childishly that California was “the most un-Trump state.”
The actions he did take, all of them plucked right out of the progressive playbook, tended to be disastrous in their impact. He ended the death penalty, in contradiction to voters’ wishes. He signed into law Assembly Bill 5, which forced companies to reclassify contractors – “gig workers” – as employees, a move that would threaten individuals in a wide range of professions, from truckers to freelance writers and musicians. As one Republican legislator put it, the effect of the law would be nothing less than to “destroy…people’s lives.” Newsom only agreed to water down the law when his mentor, Willie Brown, told him that the law threatened his own gig as a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Then came COVID. Newsom, determined to respond to the pandemic in a more authoritarian way than any governor in the country, took “the most drastic actions” possible, including a “total stay-at-home order” and a panoply of inane and arbitrary rules that resulted, for example, in a $1000 fine for a man caught surfing alone. Even some of Newsom’s leftist allies compared his actions to the tyrannical conduct of the Chinese Communist Party. Nonetheless, several other states followed Newsom’s lead, and the mainstream press celebrated him. Unsurprisingly, he was among the politicians caught violating their own rules: spotted at a birthday party at one of California’s most expensive restaurants, the French Laundry, he endured a wave of backlash. Yet this was, it appeared, a man incapable of feeling shame. Following the French Laundry scandal, he doubled down on his lockdown, mandating masks even outside and instituting a curfew. Even outdoor dining was forbidden, although it was known to be safe. The whole policy was nothing but virtue signaling. Even as it became clear that school closings and online learning were causing immense psychological and educational damage to young people, it was reported that Newsom’s own four children were undergoing “in-person learning at their private school in Sacramento.”
Newsom seemed to have a special animus for religious institutions. For a brief period during the pandemic, he reopened restaurants – but not churches. In February 2021, writes Gardey Holmes, Newsom “reopened film productions, hair salons, libraries, malls, massage parlors, nail salons, professional sporting events, retail stores, and tattoo parlors in counties where COVID-19 spread was designated as ‘widespread.’ And yet, in accordance with his continuously demonstrated bias against places of worship, churches remained shuttered.” It took an order by the Supreme Court, ruling that Newman’s action violated the First Amendment, to get the churches opened again. In 2020 came a new scandal: tens of billions in unemployment benefits had been claimed by undeserving persons – including convicted felons – under the auspices of the state’s Employment Development Department. How could this have happened? Because under Newsom, ordinary precautions to prevent such fraud had been swept away. Then came another scandal: it turned out that Newsom had solicited donations to the state and to certain charities, including one run by his wife, from various corporations – an outrageous violation of state law. And this, it emerged, was only one of several shady moves on his part to pad his and his friends’ pockets.
It was all quite appalling. Yet none of it kept true-blue California Democrats from adoring Newsom as the very embodiment of anti-Trump progressivism. Still, his missteps led, in August 2021, to a serious effort to recall him. Newsom’s supporters were quick to demonize their opponents, with the head of the state’s Democratic Party describing the recall effort as a “coup” that was “led by right-wing conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, anti-vaxxers, and groups who encourage violence on our democratic institutions.” Newsom’s leading opponent, black conservative radio host Larry Elder – a highly intelligent and worthy contender, as devoted to the improvement of California as Newsom was to his own political fortunes – was smeared in a notorious Los Angeles Times column as “the black face of white supremacy.” In the end, Newsom handily defeated the recall effort with 62% of the vote, and the next year was elected to a second term in Sacramento by a huge margin. California was apparently such a deep blue state that absolutely nothing could bring Newsom down.
Gardey Holmes rightly devotes a good deal of attention to the issue of homelessness, a problem which got worse and worse in California, especially in San Francisco, during Newsom’s years in local and state politics. As mayor, he embraced the “Housing First” approach – giving homeless people their own residences without first addressing their psychiatric issues or problems with addiction. This policy only exacerbated the homelessness situation in San Francisco, even as other solutions were scaling down the problem in New York and elsewhere. But Newsom wouldn’t budge. Plainly, ideological correctness meant more to him than practical results. So it was that as governor he doubled down on Housing First, throwing billions of dollars at it even as the problem magnified, for reasons that Michael Shellenberger has explained eloquently in his book San Fransicko: briefly put, Housing First encourages homelessness while discouraging the homeless from trying to straighten out their lives.
Then the gender madness came along, and Newsom went all out, seeking to make California a beacon for the rest of the country when it came to the noble goal of pushing transgender ideology on toddlers. He signed a bill, the Menstrual Equity Act, providing free tampons in both girls’ and boys’ bathrooms. He radically increased funding for Planned Parenthood’s attempts to push abortion on young people. Similarly, after George Floyd’s death, he supported the introduction of so-called “anti-racism” ideology into school curricula, supported changing the names of schools named after Washington and Jefferson, supported defunding the police, and supported slavery reparations for black Californians – even though slavery had never been legal in California. “We’ve got to fundamentally change who we are,” he pronounced. He signed a bill that made punishments for child rape more lenient. Dishonestly, he accused Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of banning books and pushed the “Don’t Say Gay” lie. He even ran an ad in Florida telling residents of the Sunshine State that DeSantis was robbing them of their freedoms. Traveling around the country, he promoted California as the go-to place for abortions. He even signed a bill making California a “sanctuary state” for children seeking transgender “treatment” – regardless of their parents’ wishes – and promoted Proposition 1, which would permit abortion right up to the point of delivery.
By the end of Newsom’s first term as governor, the streets of several California cities, especially San Francisco, were full of mentally ill homeless people and heroin and fentanyl users. Thanks to the “shoplifting epidemic,” even cheap items in drug stores were – and still are – kept behind lock and key. If you steal under $950 worth of stuff from a single merchant, you won’t be prosecuted – a law that has resulted in the mass closing of stores as well as of a major San Francisco shopping mall. The state is plagued by high unemployment and high rents. Student performance declined drastically during Newsom’s governorship. As of early this year, California had a $73 billion deficit. Yet none of these problems were mentioned in Newsom’s second inaugural address, in which his focus was rather on hailing California as – thanks to him, naturally – a world leader in progressive policy.
As Gardey Holmes puts it: “In Newsom’s vision, his efforts to make history—like designating California as a sanctuary for children who identify as transgender—outweighed all the state’s crises.” Not until President Biden and Chinese President Xi visited San Francisco for a conference in November 2023 did Newsom help local officials deploy “intensive measures to clean up the city. Sidewalks were resurfaced, areas were cleaned of human feces, piles of garbage were hauled away, and a giant homeless encampment vanished. The cleanup left residents questioning why such measures had not been taken earlier for their benefit.” In short, “Newsom only prioritized a clean San Francisco when the city’s cleanliness directly contributed to burnishing his public image.” Whatever you may think of Ron DeSantis, America owes him one gigantic debt of thanks: in a November 30, 2023, debate, he wiped the floor with Newsom, effectively ending the latter’s apparent plans to enter the 2024 presidential race.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that Newsom’s dream of the White House has died. No, he’s just put it on hold. And as Gardey Holmes’s cogent and comprehensive book makes eminently clear – and as she herself puts it in her concluding pages – “We should be very wary of a Newsom presidency. This is not a man whose intentions are the betterment of the country. This is a man whose intentions are the exaltation of himself and the furtherance of his own power. And, worst of all, his well-established pattern for seeking such exaltation and power is the advancement of extreme left-wing policies.” In short, as this book vividly and quite unsettlingly demonstrates, Gavin Newsom makes even the unsavory likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama look like rank amateurs when it comes to sheer egotism, megalomania, and vaingloriousness. Every American who cares about the fate of his country should pray that this oily narcissist’s dreams of national power never come to fruition.
This Globalists DNC,CFR, Traitor wants to Regulate what we Drive Disarm all law abiding Americans and Open our Borders He if a Traitor like Clinton(Bill)Obama and Biden
He sounds like the perfect candidate to lead the Democratic Party.
He looks like a con man . He is one of the worst traitors in the US
I would agree with you, but even by Democrat standards , this guy vouldn’t “lead” anything.
There’s also the “green” policy of refusing to clear dried brush a.k.a. kindling, or thinning forrests in California, making them ripe for wildfires – or should I say another wildfire.
So many wildfires, that the latest one barely made the news.
Even Canada has common sense with their forest policy, hence a wildfire in Washington state ends at the Canadian border.
(The same leftist bullshit policy of “go green” also yielded a wild grass fire in Hawaii; killing several.)
This article also explains a few things about Bank of America. It reassures me, that I made the right decision to fire that bank years ago.
Something that Ken doll Newsome has in common with all other leftist hypocrites; he sends his spoiled brats to private school, while denying that same choice to less wealthy constituents.
“Ken doll Newsome”, lol. I bet a lot of women and gay man voted for him just because he is handsome.
Hés better than that, hés Newsom.
He is not handsome… he looks like the smarmy slimebag that he is.
Bank of Italy/Bank of America founder, A.P. Giannini, and J. Paul Getty are turning in their graves now because depraved psychopathic berserk woke leftist democrat scumbags like Newsom have grabbed totalitarian power in California and America.
What a disgrace.
Yes. It’s complicated because Newsom has given a pass to PG&E (the same PG&E in the Erin Brockovich/Ed Masry case). One fire due to PG&E’s faulty equipment of theirs, and residents who lost their homes got PG&E stock instead of cash to rebuild.
Newsom is WEF-trained, graduating their “young leader” program in 2005. Everything he’s doing is from their web pages; all of it.
As far as going green is concerned, CA isn’t leading there, either. Our plastic waste is bought by China who dumps it into the sea. China’s explosion of using coal, among other things to extract rare Earth minerals for solar panels, etc. is totally ignored by Newsom. CA ships its toxic waste to other states, so Newsom can continue to say CA is “green.” Toxic waste has to be hand-harvested and our landfills are filling up with this toxic and dangerous waste. Same with pumping oil. CA used to be a leader, now all those jobs are gone, with US giving Chevron permission to sell oil to Venezuela (a Socialist country) after Chevron left California – and CA buying Chevron’s Venezuelan oil. You can’t make this up.
Newsom put the Cartels into Republican counties. Daily Caller did a story on this. Narcofornia – look for it. Totally silent on the Chinese illegal labs.
China ships Auto sear parts into San Francisco, Port of L.A. which turn a Glock handgun into an automatic weapon. Apparently, Newsom is only anti-gun if it doesn’t benefit China. Same with Fentanyl which is shipped into CA ports, smuggled across the border, but also shipped directly to Mexico who is working with China.
Newsom gave almost $2B of CA taxpayer money to BYD, an auto manufacturer in China, back in 2020 for “masks.” They were defective, and of that nearly $2B (two separate no-bid contracts), Californians only got back $247M
Newsom praises CCP newspapers at each and every opportunity, calling them “truthful.” He is a foreign agent. Read more about it in Blood Money, by Peter Schweizer.
IF you are a Californian and have had ENOUGH – RescueCalifornia.org is the web page for the current Recall petition.
Sounds like a candidate for antichrist
Close, but the anti Christ is Emmanuel Macron.
All these WEF fools are. Fortunately as of today, 6-30-2024, it appears that LePen won in France.
I left Cali a few years before Guv. Hairgel was installed as governor. Apparently it’s only gotten worse during his tenure.
As a native California resident who still lives here, I can tell you that it’s much worse than you suspect. Even more so, Newsom is only popular among the wealthy liberal elites. Of course, all the problems California is burdened with does not impose upon their neighborhoods or lifestyles so voting for democrats imposes no consequences on them.
As I often say to friends and anyone who’ll listen,, if gasoline cost $20/gal and a bag of groceries cost $150/bag, it wouldn’t bother most liberals the least bit. They all tend to be wealthy or better off than most people so why would it?
Besides, voting for democrat bullshit assuages their guilt over being able to afford whatever they want while most people struggle to make ends meet. It also hides their contempt for people who are not their financial equals.
One of the greatest fault of American culture is the fact that most Americans equate intelligence with wealth. That is to say, you can have an IQ of less that 100 but if you’re rich, people tend to automatically assume that you’re smart and wise.
Proof? Look at the Hollyweird crowd. Most people listen to them and take them seriously just because and only because they’re famous and rich. The loudest mouths in Hollyweird are always the dumbest and least educated.
What is it about dumb rich people (aka, liberals) that makes them think their opinions matter? California is full of such people. They’re full of something and it ain’t beans!
Also a California native and long-term resident here. I don’t know anyone who really appreciates his governorship. We’re the most overregulated state on the west coast, we have long term businesses leaving by the hour, and for the first time in our history we have LOST population. Further, I’m from San Francisco, I can’t set foot in that town ever again for fear of what may happen or what I might catch. Scripture says, “By their works shall you know them.” Visit San Francisco (Newsome’s home town) and know him well!
I was born and raised in L.A. but move to San Diego not long after I graduated from college. The last time I set foot in L.A. was in 1996. When I left LA I burned all my bridges down behind me and never looked back.
LA, my home own, is a thoroughly corrupt, crime ridden, overcrowded, filthy democrat ran sh*t hole. There’s absolutely nothing I miss about LA.
The other problem is the unions. We have major teaching unions, plus SEIU/UHW, big labor like IBEW/OPEIU which will get a windfall from this EV nonsense that Newsom (and Biden) are spewing. We’re told now not to plug anything in and stop using power. LOL.
Read more about how Hollywood was captured decades ago by the CIA. CHAOS by Tom O’Neill and Blood Money by Peter Schweizer.
As someone who had family members in that industry on both sides, I guarantee you that they have never had a benevolent intent.
He’s married to a woman who killed her own sister and later had transactional sex with Harvey Weinstein. And it seems that was just for starters.
Did she also do Willie Brown? Willie Brown is/was notorious in Sacramento and San Francisco for “dipping his wick” in the female socialites. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he probably also did Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer too. Both are heavy drinkers and “I was drunk” is always a convenient excuse if you get caught doing “the nasty.”
Let’s not forget how Kamala came to be.
And THEY dare to rant about WHITE PRIVLEGE?
When THEY labeled Larry Elder, “The Blackface of White Supremacy!”, NOT ONE DEMOCRAT CONDEMNED THAT!
AND NOW PENCIL NECK is running for Senate as the biggest weasel ever?
PEOPLE ARE MOVING out of California and THEY don’t care. They’re happy! They’re LAUGHING! THEY’RE living their American Dream that they want for the entire country: ONE-PARTY RULE!
Democrats know no shame nor have any discernible standards of decency or morality and are paragons of modern hedonism. Never trust such a person because more often than not they are more at ease with lying and exaggeration than telling the truth.
Biden certainly is.
Those who can; do. Those who can’t; teach. Those who can’t do anything; become career politicians.
Just as police work and security guard work tends to attract a certain number of power-hungry bullies, so does career politics.
And he looks like Max Headroom with dark hair.
What do you actually do? You definitely one of the “Can’ts”.
Many “can’ts” like you become longwinded verbose faux philosophers, always ready to tell others how think, act, whine and complain.
Aside from being a wannabe power-hungry bully, you always seem ready to destroy Christianity and Judaism, and for what? So we can be rounded up and put into one of your Objectivist cattle cars and sent to an Randian gulag for re-education?
I assume you don’t really like effective policing or security guards, who actually protect the work and actual accomplishments of others.
It’s no wonder you really don’t accomplish much sitting at home passing judgment on the general population.
Intrepid, you are forever linked to THX 1138.
For what it’s worth, I rate politicians somewhere between pimps and maggots.
That pretty much explains American academia.
Grab’em Nuisance is straight out of central casting as the anti-Christ.
Newsom is part of a family dynasty. Polis and Newsom are kissing cousins. Pelosi is their aunt. Pelosi has many relatives in powerful governmental positions. It is a crime family! We can just shut our ears and sing la la la la.
Not exactly, but Pelosi wants Newsom installed; that part has been obvious for years now.
CA has been under the thumb of four families, all corrupt, since the 1950s. Brown, Newsom, Pelosi, Getty. Toss in Feinstein, too.
All Newsom has to do is add a pair of silicone breast implants and he’ll be the perfect progressive presidential candidate.
This clown makes Mumbles and the Queer Kenyan seem like choir boys. Get used to him though, he’ll be the democrat nominee for president and the swamp will stop at nothing in order to “install” him in the White House.
It won’t be people in California who’ll vote for him. We have to live with his liberal bullsh*t. But betcha northeastern liberals will swoon over Newsom though.
For some reason, they seem to be enthralled with west coast democrats and don’t give a sh*t what we the people of California think of Newsom and our low opinion of him. Here on the left coast we call him: “any twosome Newsom” (he’s an outspoken supporter of the rainbow mafia.)
A native Californian, I made the decision to leave the state when he was elected. Fortunately, I retired and moved right before the draconian lockdown.
As to the recall, there were more than a few people who, when they went to vote in person, were told that they had already voted. Our election system is deeply corrupted, and the evidence makes me fearful for our future.
God forbid that Newsom’s power ever extends further than California. His damage is so evident to anyone who is paying attention, but it seems that so many people are just snoozing in front of the TV.
If they’ll vote for Beijing Biden they’ll vote for California’s incarnation of “The Joker”. Far too many voters are attracted to the “personality” side of voting than the “political” side. That’s why we get saddled with self-aggrandizing liars who are well practiced at presenting a false persona. It’s a tried and true technique and the reason this country is swirling in the toilet bowl.
Newsom is every bit as compromised by China as Biden is.
I wouldn’t deign to give the democrats the pleasure of running me out of the state. The dems are contemptuous of people like me because I have the means and the defiant will to tell them to go f**k themselves.
Why? Because their inane bullsh*t “policies” have little to no impact on me now or in the foreseeable future. If and when I leave California, it will be for no reason other than my own volition.
IF Prop 13 protections fail, I’ll be forced out. As a semi-handicapped, partially sighted senior, this totally stinks. While I’m in sort of a neighborhood that is historic, I will sell the house as a tear-down and totally leave scorched Earth behind me, IF it comes to that.
Newsom is possessed by demons.
Nahhh. I think not. I think he’s full of sh*t to the extent that it has displaced his brain which is slowly being pushed down his alimentary canal into his bowels.
It’s a malady that mostly afflicts rich arrogant assholes and particularly rich arrogant liberal assholes.
Like many of his ilk (AOC, Maxine Watters, Biden, etc.), I am convinced that their actual IQ hovers somewhere between 85 and 92. The idiocies that these brain-dead tw*ts keep perpetrating are proof enough that thereare a few crayons missing in their boxes.
They probably ate the crayons thinking they were fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls!!
As usual, Trump has absolutely nailed it. He refers to California’s Governor, as Governor Gavin Newscum.
As usual, Trump has absolutely nailed it. He laughingly refers to California’s Governor, as Governor Gavin NewSCUM!!.
Newsom is Trudeau’s twin sister, and equally traitorous.
Personally, I think Newsom is a hermaphrodite. You have to be careful when berating him though. And never, EVER tell him to go f**k himself. As a hermaphrodite, he is functionally capable of “f**king” himself! Freak!!