California

Eric Swalwell’s fall from viable gubernatorial contender to political casualty was swift and surgical. He was among the frontrunners to replace Governor Gavin Newsom until allegations of sexual misconduct from years ago were published in the San Francisco Chronicle. The response from major Democratic operatives was immediate, with labor unions and party figures quickly withdrawing endorsements. Swalwell formally announced the suspension of his campaign two days later, followed by his resignation from Congress the following day. Some of the allegations are serious. In addition to claims of inappropriate and predatory sexual relationships with staffers, Swalwell has been accused of sexual assault. In a video statement, he denied any criminal wrongdoing.

Is it Swal-over for Swalwell? Congressman Eric Swalwell – the longtime anti-Trump crusader, MS Now and CNN mainstay, and a leading candidate in the California gubernatorial race – has now been accused by an anonymous ex-staffer of sexual assault. The allegations, published by the San Francisco Chronicle, turn mainly on inebriation and the so-called power imbalance between the two: Driving him to another event weeks later, she said Swalwell pulled out his penis in the car and asked her to perform oral sex on him. She said she did so in a parking lot. In September 2019, the woman said, Swalwell invited her out for drinks and she became so severely intoxicated that she does not remember the rest of the night.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a hospital visit to comfort the victim of a knife attack on a police officer, who was forced to fire his weapon to defend himself. Of course, the bed Mamdani visited was that of the schizophrenic man, Jabez Chakraborty, who charged at police and was shot as a result. It almost goes without saying that New York’s new mayor did not check in on the officer.Face and voice full of strained emotion, Mamdani said after the visit: “No family should have to endure this kind of pain,” referring to the family of the knife-wielder. He made no remarks about the strains on families of police officers whose incredibly difficult, and increasingly thankless job, puts them face-to-face with knife wielding assailants for a starting salary of $60,000.

More through historical accident than anything else, Gavin Newsom has emerged as the de facto leader of the Democratic resistance. His dubious attempt to redistrict California along partisan lines won at the ballot box last month. It was a gamble – an open and explicit attempt at gerrymandering – which voters have rewarded. He is conspicuously modeling his image on Bill Clinton’s and Slick Willie is returning the compliment by letting insiders know that he is hugely impressed by Newsom’s talents. Newsom is also audaciously recasting himself as a working-class hero. He has said he spent his childhood “hustling” and that he “raised himself.” That rather downplays his rise as a protégé of the Getty family, which employed his father as its lawyer.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump depicted himself as synonymous with winning. “We’re gonna win so much,” he said, “you may even get tired of winning and you’ll say please, please, it’s too much winning we can’t take it anymore.” Lately, however, Trump has been losing – losing not only in the court of public opinion, but also the courts themselves. The latest instance came with the decision of Utah judge Dianna Gibson to reject a congressional map that Republican lawmakers drew to try and ensure that a Democrat cannot win even a single seat in the state. Gibson ruled that the map “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.” Utah Democrats rejoiced.

How do you give an interview so bad that it tanks your chances of winning an election by nearly 40 points? Ask former California congresswoman Katie Porter, who until yesterday was the presumptive favorite to become the state’s next governor.   In a sit-down with Porter that resembles an old-school satirical Daily Show segment – before TDS turned that show into another partisan screed-fest – CBS News California Investigates correspondent Julie Watts asks Porter, simply, how she plans on winning Republican votes. “How would I need them in order to win, ma’am?” Porter sneers. "I have stood on my own two feet and won Republican votes before.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity" may very well be the epitaph of Gavin Newsom's political career when he leaves office in January 2027. Driven by his presidential ambitions, California's governor is torching a quarter-billion taxpayer dollars on a redistricting scheme that would make Elbridge Gerry himself blush. What Newsom calls "fighting Trump," voters increasingly recognize as #GavinMandering, a transparent attempt to override the independent redistricting commission they approved to end exactly this kind of political manipulation. The political implications are staggering, not just for California but for the future of Democratic Party credibility nationwide.

Gavin Newsom once touted California as the fossil fuel industry’s “foe.” In 2024 he declared energy workers “the polluted heart of the climate crisis.” Together with Attorney General Rob Bonta he famously filed an outlandish climate lawsuit in 2023 demanding oil majors pay the costs of climate change. And under Newsom anti-energy lawfare has been coupled with burdensome environmental regulations, delays in permitting and punitive legislation such as a pledge to end oil drilling across the state by 2045. But now, a decade since the madness started, the strategy has turned out to be a dud. The “bold” climate plan has produced no reliable or affordable alternatives to oil and gas – and has even forced major refineries to up and leave.

Judging from how much Gavin Newsom talks about Donald Trump these days, the governor’s real project isn’t governing California – it’s raising his national profile ahead of an inevitable presidential run. He’s found an issue that lets him pit himself against Trump and gain coveted national media attention: reconfiguring California’s congressional districts to put more Democrats in Congress. He’s pitching it as a way to “fight fire with fire” after Texas Republicans passed their own partisan maps. In reality, it’s a political power grab dressed up as righteous urgency. The problem is that in 2010, Californians voted to take redistricting away from politicians and hand it to an independent citizen commission – a reform meant to end gerrymandering.

With great fanfare, California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed “historic” legislative package designed to “advance an abundance agenda.” It’s a nod to the recent (and fashionable) book Abundance by the liberal bloggers Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, and it’s supposed to reform a state best known for a punitive cost of living and chronic shortages of everything essential – including housing, water, and energy.  Key to Newsom’s new legislation are Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, both of which make fundamental changes to how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is enforced.

In a 2023 interview, California Governor Gavin Newsom was asked how he ended up in a leadership position. After struggling with his response, he eventually paraphrased a line from George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant: “I put a mask on and my face grew into it.” It was a remarkable admission that inadvertently validated his most common critique – that he is fundamentally inauthentic. Newsom has always seemed as though he were grown in a lab to be a politician. In a way, he was. The son of a well-connected judge and insider of the Getty family dynasty, he has glided through public life with the polished ease of someone born to power. He looks like a central casting governor, speaks in political platitudes and has successfully learned to suppress any sign of human spontaneity.