AENN

Katy Grimes

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is making a trip to China ostensibly to take a climate-focused tour of the Country, announced Thursday he will make a swing through Israel – during a war.

Newsom is already being mocked for his China trip, with critics saying his trip “proves that Newsom doesn’t care about technology espionage or human rights issues.”

Think about that – a governor of one state in the 50 United States is going to China, and then to Israel “to meet with victims of the Israeli-Hamas war.” What? Newsom’s office said California is also sending medical supplies to the region, including provisions intended for the Gaza Strip.

Newsom is a governor – of a state – in a country of 50 states… unless the real purpose of the trip is to burnish his international credentials because he has already measured the White House drapes and checked out the formal dinnerware. Hmmm.

We are expected to believe that feeble President Joe Biden is running for reelection, while Gavin Newsom makes a world tour campaigning, simultaneously pretending that he as a governor is a world leader capable of running the United States.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so treacherous.

Laughably, one headline said Newsom heads to Israel for surprise visit ahead of China trip. Surprise?

If we had a proficient President, he would publicly humiliate the pesky pushy California governor for swerving out of his narrow lane. Sadly, Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, had the same problem – he saw himself as a world leader capable of negotiating important climate change treaties.

In 2017, then-Governor Brown took a trip to China “to meet with Communist dictator President Xi Jinping, signaling to the world his fidelity to the unratified and dubious Paris Climate treaty, in spite of President Donald Trump’s recent withdrawal from the pact,” I reported. “Brown should be investigated for colluding with a known foreign enemy upon his return to the United States–a federal republic of 50 states of which he is but one governor. It is unconstitutional for a state to supplant federal powers and act on its own when dealing with other nations. Brown’s trip to China to enter into a treaty as a sovereign nation is unconstitutional on several levels, and violates the Logan Act.”

But as with Jerry Brown’s “non-binding” agreement with President Xi Jinping, no doubt Newsom will do the same. “Non-binding?” How non-binding is a climate change agreement when it directly impacts the California taxpayers with exponentially higher energy costs, gas tax increases, and draconian regulations on the trucking industry, just to name a few of the implications?

Gov. Newsom has a few serious issues in California he should be dealing with, which may not get him elected President, but would help stave off the rapid decline of the Golden State… if he cared at all.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board has a timely piece today exposing Newsom’s crime-laden state, while his nemesis, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has actually reduced crime in his:

“In California violent crime is still up 13% since 2019. In Florida it’s down 31.5%. The rate of violent crime in Mr. Newsom’s state last year, 499.5 per 100,000 people, was nearly double that in Mr. DeSantis’s domain, 258.9 per 100,000.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t running for president in 2024, at least not yet, but he has agreed to a televised Fox News debate next month with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. One worthy topic will be their respective economic records, but they should also spend some time on public safety.

“The nearby chart shows a longer view. Amid the Covid lockdowns, the George Floyd protests, and a public backlash toward law enforcement, violence shot up in Florida, as in many other states, though California stayed on a higher plateau. But the real difference is what happened next: in 2021 and 2022, violent crime plunged in Florida while surging in California. One caveat is that the FBI in 2021 changed its methodology for calculating crime rates, but this affected all states, so it isn’t responsible for the obvious divergence.”

The FBI chart makes this quite clear:

Doing the people’s business isn’t sexy, and the issues may seem droll. But as ambitious politicians like Newsom stray further and further from the needs of the people who elected him, in favor of the “needs” of the campaign donors and financiers, it could backfire.

Newsom’s record is abysmal – going all the way back to when he was Mayor of San Francisco. He has been rewarded for his deficiencies and inadequacies and failed up.

Does his record matter? Not to the news media – they like his hair.

Does his record matter? Not to the labor unions who first got him elected, then saved him during the recall election, and have been duly rewarded since by the governor.

Does his record matter? Not to the Big Tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley, who also helped get him elected and are rewarded with friendly legislation.

But when comparing governor to governor – Newsom to DeSantis – Governor Newsom’s California, can be partially summed up this way in this incomplete list of disastrous policy decisions:

Water rationing
Highest taxes in the nation
businesses fleeing to other states
Dramatically increasing crime
Cities in decline
multiple labor unions striking
growing mentally-ill, drug addicted homeless population littering streets with feces and drug needles
denied housing vouchers in Los Angeles
reparations for descendants of slaves
$7.00-per-gallon-gas
porn in K-12 curriculum
State mandated secrecy of gender transitioning children from parents
COVID mandatory vaccine bills
Single Payer health coverage – Socialized medicine
public school teachers strikes
energy shortage, rolling blackouts
Newsom’s COVID State of Emergency order from March 2020 until the end of February 2023
Newsom’s Vaccine mandates for school children, days after opposing one for prison guards
Newsom signed AB 5 into law, killing off the state’s independent contractors