Gavin Newsom

Matt McCaw doesn’t want to live anywhere but in Oregon. But during the pandemic he felt like he was living under tyrannical rule imposed by the state’s progressive majority in metro Portland. The school that his six children attended closed for more than a year due to a state mandate — and they received just four hours of online instruction per week. His church was forced to close, and his business selling textbooks suffered because school districts were buying online curricula, not physical books. Mask and vaccine mandates were ubiquitous; McCaw couldn’t even take his wife out to dinner to break the monotony, because all the restaurants were takeout-only. “I thought there would be a huge political backlash against all that,” he says.

Another day, another potential Kamala Harris flip-flop. The vice president is now quiet on whether she still supports providing a pathway to citizenship for 2 million “DREAMers” —  illegal immigrant children who were given temporary relief from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.In 2019, when running for the Democratic nomination for president, Harris supported four executive actions to grant amnesty to 2 million DACA recipients.Axios reports:  Harris proposed putting DREAMers on a path to a green card by, among other things, granting work authorizations, using certain parole powers and waiving rules barring people from returning to the US if they leave to apply for a green card in a US consulate abroad.

This just in: Steve Hilton, former Fox News host and policy advisor to British PM David Cameron, wants to be the next media star to challenge California governor Newsom, Politico reports.   Newsom's mettle was previously tested by conservative radio host Larry Elder, who failed to get the governor out of office in 2021 during an unsuccessful recall effort. Elder received the most votes out of forty-six people running to replace Newsom, but since most voted against replacing the governor, that became irrelevant.   Not to mention California has not had a Republican in Sacramento since Arnold Schwarzenegger won a recall election against Democratic governor Gray Davis in 2003...   Hilton seemingly fled the UK to Atherton, California, in 2012 for his wife's job.

When Joe Biden was elected in 2020, an overjoyed Los Angeles Times boasted that his goal was to “make America California again.” Biden has fulfilled the Times’s vision, if with less than complete success. Over the past few weeks, however, lunchbucket Joe from Scranton has been unceremoniously dumped by the Golden State elite — Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, George Clooney and a passel of tech oligarchs — to be replaced with one of their own, Vice President Kamala Harris. But given the chances of a GOP win this year, the Californians have another favorite in the wings, Governor Gavin Newsom, for 2028. Harris’s elevation and Newsom’s looming challenge are but parts of what can be best described as the Californication of the Democratic Party.

Vice President Kamala Harris is almost three weeks into her presidential campaign and not only has she failed to hold an unscripted press conference or sit for a media interview, she also has zero policy positions on her campaign website. Democratic strategists have repeatedly assured me that she will adopt whatever platform comes out of the Democratic National Convention, which certainly won’t help the perception that she is a manufactured candidate willing to do whatever it takes to seize power, but I digress. The clear indication we are getting from the early stages of the Harris-Walz campaign is that it is all about “vibes” and the idea that Harris is selling “joy.

Not long before Joe Biden finally accepted defeat, Gavin Newsom, the 56-year-old governor of California, was on the stump for him in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, shirt undone two daring buttons, sleeves rolled up, silver hair gelled just so. Newsom, who is now being mentioned as Kamala Harris’s running mate, models himself on Bill Clinton. People who’ve worked with him say he practises Clintonian gestures in the mirror, though the look he’s achieved is more Harley Street gynaecologist. How can Gavin Newsom sleep knowing he’s encouraged children to think of their parents as the enemy? ‘If Donald Trump succeeds, God help us, we will roll back the last half-century,’ Newsom told the Pennsylvania crowd. ‘It’s America in reverse.

President Joe Biden signed the foreign aid package, which features $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, on Wednesday after the bill swiftly moved through Congress. The breakdown of aid is as follows: $61 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel and $8 billion for Taiwan.Speaker Mike Johnson infuriated some of his Republican colleagues by even negotiating on the legislation, let alone bringing it to the House floor for a vote; he previously said he would not move any foreign aid until Democrats agreed to give additional funds for border security. Instead, after the Senate rejected the border security bill HR-2 and Johnson rejected the Senate-negotiated immigration package, the speaker made moves to go ahead with sending money abroad anyway.

Former president Donald Trump helped out the GOP establishment with his latest round of congressional endorsements — including one particularly notable one where he passed over a guy he endorsed in the last election cycle.Just two years ago, Trump endorsed Darren Bailey for governor of Illinois, snubbing the state’s GOP establishment, which had been firmly behind Aurora mayor Richard Irvin. Bailey blew Irvin out of the water in the primary — thanks to additional support from Democrats who successfully meddled in the primary —and was dismantled by J.B. Pritzker in November.This time around, Trump is backing Congressman Mike Bost, who’s been fending off a primary bid from Bailey.