California Governor Gavin Newsom recently had a debate with FOX host Sean Hannity, where he schooled him on the issues.
Gavin just sent out this newsletter:
Dear Diane,
Want the truth? Here’s the truth:
But that is not all.
8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates are red and gun deaths are almost 2x as high in red states.
The Supreme Court has stripped women of their liberty and let red states replace it with mandated birth.
They ban books, silence teachers and make it harder to vote in red states.
The reason Republicans like Ron DeSantis are fanning the flames of culture wars is to distract from the fact that Florida has higher murder rates, worse education and worse health care outcomes than states like California.
That’s the truth.
– Gavin
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DeSantis also wants to distract from the fact that California despite all the droughts, floods and wildfires, homeowners’ insurance at an average of $1300 in CA is far less than the $6,000 average premiums in Florida today because the DeSantis is in the insurance industry’s pocket. Ron Debacle has also made it more difficult for Floridians to file for and collect on claims. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/homeowners-go-without-insurance-in-states-where-its-too-expensive-rcna88578
From wikipedia:
The economy of the State of California is the largest in the United States, with a $3.598 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2022.[2] It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California were a sovereign nation (2022), it would rank in terms of nominal GDP as the world’s fifth largest economy, behind Germany and ahead of India.[9]Additionally, California’s Silicon Valleyis home to some of the world’s most valuable technology companies, including Apple, Alphabet, and Nvidia.[10] In total, over 10% of Fortune 1000 companies were based in California in 2018, the most of any state.[11]
That’s my governor! Everything he says here is true. I’ve lived through fires, floods, earthquakes, boom and bust in California, and now I guess I am going to have to endure the plague of libertarian tech billionaires. (They are libertarian until their banks go under, I must point out.) But I was born here and I’m not leaving.
They are libertarian until their banks go under, I must point out.
Haaaa!
The “divide” is set in stone, the nation will never be governable again. The cult has 45-50% of the electorate controlled, Dems need 60% majorities to get anything done, and that ain’t gonna happen. And if they did, the Courts have been corrupted for generations to rein them in. Linda’s been warning us about Leonard Leo for years. He’s winning.
https://crooksandliars.com/2023/06/how-secret-panel-helped-desantis-flip
It is ungovernable now. Putin is laughing through his cancer treatments. His investment in Don the Con paid off handsomely.
Gavin Newsom debating Sean Hannity is like John F. Kennedy debating one of the Three Stooges. The guy’s just a entertainer, and that’s all he is. He has no leadership responsibilities. Hannity was out of his league.
All of the intelligent people are fleeing California, just like new york, and Chicago is an absolute disaster. Nancy Pelosi and san Francisco is a cess pool of homeless people and filth. What will be happening is a “change of batter” old Biden who is a criminal 1000 times worse than his son will eventually be removed. Most likely by the 25th amendment as Trump predicted. Then you will most likely see Gavin Newsom orrrrrr Mikelle Obama.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11161049/Shocking-new-images-reveal-extend-homelessness-San-Francisco.html
Of course. The intelligent people can’t wait to get to places with high degrees of learning and culture like, uh, Mississippi and Indiana and West Virginia. Oh, and they are all rushing off to Plant City and The Villages in Florida, by the droves!!!!
Good thing that Old Biden is being challenged by that sharp young up-and-comer, Donald Trump!
Cool story, bro.
Intelligent Californian 1: I just can’t wait to get to rural Tennessee where I can hang out with Lester Ballard!
Intelligent Californian 2: Or to AIleen Wournos’s Flor-uh-duh!
Intelligent Californian 1: Of course, West Virginia is up there, too, you know, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Williamson West Virginia.
We aren’t all fleeing but it is a very serious problem.
What problem is that?
Homelessness and drug addiction.
I would say the Nation and NYC suffer from other more pressing problems that have led to an explosion in homelessness. Till 1983 before the Reagan Revolution took hold, 90% of National Income went to those earning below the Social Security Cap. In 2021 only 81.4% of National income goes to those earning below the cap. This is not just a problem for Social Security. It represents a tremendous shift in wealth to the top 1% of Americans. The cap is set at 160k in 2023. You can pretty much exclude from breaking that cap most of the working class. Exclude even Union Construction Workers and Union Teachers even on Long Island where Billionaire Dolan’s Newday rants about Teacher salaries over 100k.
This wealth transfer is not going to the one or two long Island Teachers or Construction workers who earn over that cap. This wealth transfer is not just a natural function of free markets.The laws and policy enacted by the Nation have very much enabled the transfer. From increased patent protection, to trade agreements that decimated manufacturing, to restrictions on Union activity as far back as 1947, to Reagan releasing an orgy of Union busting. I am not suggesting that NYC teachers are going homeless but that the lot of the entire working class has worsened. As the Pandemic demonstrated when labor shortages hit the the economy, it was the bottom quintile that finally saw the greatest income gains, actually exceeding inflation. A slight reversal of this wealth transfer. When these low wage workers were finally given some power in an economy rigged by the political power of Plutocrats and Oligarchs.
From a minimum wage that hadn’t been raised in 15 years, to the failure of productivity gains to be shared with the vast majority of workers, to prices / profits far in excess of increased costs passed on to consumers, even as the producer costs drop (as pointed out by none other than the WSJ). Enabled by the consolidation and monopoly power of corporations, the economy is rigged.
At the same time as this wealth transfer took place the taxes collected on that wealth have been dramatically reduced both marginally and effectively. Leaving Cities unable to build or even maintain the affordable housing they once did. NYC privatizing its Public Housing in a desperate effort to fund repairs.
A very recent survey of homelessness in California revealed that the root cause of most homelessness had economic roots. A lack of affordable housing combined with poverty level wages pushing people to the streets and shelters when an economic calamity hits(ie. losing a job ) .
“Something goes wrong, and then everything else falls apart,” the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Margot Kushel, the director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at UCSF, told the New York Times. “Everything in their life gets worse when they lose their housing: their health, their mental health, their substance use.”
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/06/study-california-homelessness-crisis/
This is not an issue that NYC or San Francisco can solve.Not as long as wealth can avoid taxation by relocating. It was created by the sh-t hole states whose control of Congress and the Court has rigged the economy for those oligarchs for multiple decades and continues to do so.
And I might add many Blue or Purple State Democrats have had no problem jumping on the money train with neo liberal garbage from Education to Trade. There are no free markets . “Politics Is Who Decides Who Get What When and How.”
I like the cut of your gibberish, Mister!
Yes, he’s right. Another reason for the “culture wars” and attacks of that kind is that Republicans are trying to shrink government wherever they can’t use it to help the business interests they represent. They can’t win if the run on a “business first, last & always” theme, so they raise smoke over cultural issues, make up stuff, etc.
They use this culture wars stuff as a smoke screen. It riles up the most ignorant among us and wins their votes, and then they work against the interests of those very people, who are too ignorant to know that that’s what they are doing. Eh, Josh?
And have been doing so for almost 70 years.
False assumption underlying your entire premise. republicans have never tried to “shrink government.” Ever. Another example of being characterized by something they have no connection to, like “being better on economic issues.” They try to rework the mechanisms of public life to favor them in all part of public and private life. They “shrink” some targeted programs in order to shift policies, resources to others to benefit them. They prioritize military spending because it is unaccountable, bottomless, and creates the illusion of superiority, safety, and order.
Shrink government indeed. What twaddle.
GregB But Republicans claim they want “small government,” and that Democrats are the ones who want “big government” and who spend too much money, as well as having a “dark state” side . . . hmmmm……CBK
More precisely, I think, it can be said from looking at the history, Republicans want smaller government when it comes to providing public services at minimal or no cost. So, for instance, they opposed creating Social Security, Medicare, etc. Now they are trying to whittle those programs so as to allow tax cutting for their wealthy contributors. They are for a more robust government when it comes to our individual rights, religious freedoms, etc.
Jack Burgess An awareness of the present Orwellian duplicity has been a long-time coming for many in this country; but, of course, the transition to that awareness is still going on . . . it’s just one framing aspect of our present extreme polemics.
Just as an afterthought: the difficulty of coming to an understanding of the presence of political duplicity may have its roots in the other (relatively happy) extreme version that emerged from tensions of post-WWII and post-FDR culture.
Of course, we had lots of conflicts going on; but in the political domain, how many during the 50’s and 60’s or even later, questioned their own or other people’s democratic (small d) political foundations? As GregB suggests, we’ve been quite naive and optimistic . . . meaning that we could not see the wool as it was pulled over our eyes, even when it scratched our faces. CBK
Jack My note to you went to moderation. CBK
Not shrink government? What would you call cutting PUBLIC education in favor of home schooling or private schooling? What would you call the efforts to trim or eliminate Social Security, the Affordable Care Act, etc. They cut social programs and, yes, increase defense spending, but that’s not always “government,” as much defense spending goes to private contractors, etc.
Perhaps unclear writing leads to a lack of reading comprehension. The goal of republicans is not to “shrink government,” although we’ve been indoctrinated to think that way to divert from reality. Privatizers are not killing public education, they are creating new ways to profit. Cutting regulations is not about making government smaller, it’s about having a lack of the ability to regulate except for the things that can be contrived to increase an advantage. Having unaccountable, untouchable, ever-increasing military spending that starves other programs is not about shrinking government, it’s about shifting priorities to favor a few.
“Shrinking government” is a rhetorical political summation, not a reality. Shifting funds and responsibilities to make them permanent is. Much like their bywords “innovation” and “disruption,” their intent is not to create, invent or perpetuate American ideals, but to make their own realities at the expense of others. Killing public education is a very symptom of a complex disease.
We agree with main point on this, I think, Jack. What we disagree on vehemently is how to talk and do something about it. I think the “shrink government” shtick has been one of great diversionary hoaxes of all time. Let’s start with Reagan, even though we could probably could go much further back than that, to Taft or Garfield. He came on the scene riding the “small government” pony and left it with a healthy stampede of special interest favors in spending, policies, and tax cuts that was anything but small government. Yet that was the mantra of the Contract with America, they kept the “shrink government” cachet because people ignored the reality and chose to believe the rhetoric, even those who vehemently opposed it. By the time Gingrich was out, our “shrinking government” got bigger and many interests who made so profited as they credited republicans for “reining in the excesses of Clinton spending policies.”
Let’s stick with education. As spending for public education has gone down, spending the aggregate for “education” has been going up steadily. Only thing is: just a few can apply, and most of the winners were determined before the bids became “open.”
The only way to battle the misuse of the term “shrink government” (or any or its analogies) is to quit using it (and them). You can’t fight the reality of out of control policies inspired by government activism or neglect without more resources. Why are the people who understand this using and underscoring language that both lies and makes a false, convincing case to those who don’t care about the details.
Jack Burgess An awareness of the present Orwellian duplicity has been a long-time coming for many in this country; but, of course, the transition to that awareness is still going on . . . it’s just one framing aspect of our present extreme polemics.
Just as an afterthought: the difficulty of coming to an understanding of the presence of political duplicity may have its roots in the other (relatively happy) extreme version that emerged from tensions of post-WWII and post-FDR culture.
Of course, we had lots of conflicts going on; but in the political domain, how many during the 50’s and 60’s or even later, questioned their own or other people’s democratic (small d) political foundations? As GregB suggests, we’ve been quite naive and optimistic . . . meaning that we could not see the wool as it was pulled over our eyes, even when it scratched our faces. CBK
Isn’t Orwellian duplicity measured in exponential terms?
GregB I think that’s right (Orwellian duplicity has a potential (at least) of exponentiality. But I suspect you may have a way to refer to it that might add meaning to what I am thinking?
While I am responding to this note, I’d like to add something about an earlier point about the roots of one’s political views . . . which can become a source of our own naivete if keep projecting them out to the politically powerful, e.g., the wealthy, for instance; and when we are unaware of how change is occurring around us . . . and which can go “down” even into our genetics. I think that’s what they mean also when they talk about the meaning of “implicit bias.”
We also can apply the idea of slow transitioning to the writ-large level of culture, and to group and individual experiences of their social and religiously habituated orders. There is a dialectical relationship between “culture” including its religious elements, in its good sense, and “cult” in its bad sense. CBK