Gavin Newsom sent out July 4 greetings with a question: Where do people have true freedom?
Newsom writes:
Happy 4th of July from the Freedom State of California.
Freedom.
While Republicans cry freedom, they dictate the choices that people are allowed to make. Fanning the flames of these exhausting culture wars. Banning abortion, banning books and banning free speech in the classroom and in the boardroom.
But the truth is, true freedom means being able to love the person you love without fear or discrimination.
True freedom means you can afford to get the health care you need without going bankrupt.
True freedom means you can go to a movie, a parade, a church or an elementary school without fear of getting shot.
True freedom is a woman and her doctor making the health care decisions she needs.
True freedom means you don’t have to choose between covering the cost of your utilities or the medicine you need to live.
True freedom means living life without fear that large portions of the planet will be uninhabitable for future generations.
More than any people, in any place, California has bridged the historic expanse between freedom for some, and freedom for all.
Freedom is our essence, our brand name – the abiding idea that right here, anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything.
So with that, I want to wish you and your family a safe, happy and healthy 4th of July from the Freedom State of California.
Thank you,
Gavin Newsom
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Nah, true freedom is the right to crap in the streets whenever and wherever you want.
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It’s only fair. You can crap here as well.
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Dawn, isn’t true freedom the right to carry an assault weapon whenever and wherever you want so when you crap in the streets, no one wants to risk their life to prevent you from doing so?
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Dawn, do you do that? What state do you live in?
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Ah, the latest Repugnican ludicrous false attribution to Democrats. CRT in the schools. Jewish space lasers. Grooming. Democrats favoring crapping in the streets. Do tell, Dawn.
Crime rates are higher in DeFascist’s Flor-uh-duh, btw, and educational outcomes are worse.
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Nah, true freedom is the right to crap in the stairways, halls, and offices of the United States Capitol while mobbing the place, maiming police officers, and attempting to assassinate your duly elected officials.
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You tell ’em, Brother LC! Let freedumb ring a ding a ling!
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Do Qanon Shamans crap in the Capitol?
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Do Qanon shamans crap in the Capitol? Does a bear crap in the woods? Does Michelle Rhee crap on young people’s heads from her broom?
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Ouch! Straight to the heart.
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Newsom is describing western Europe today, which has much more personal freedom than the cult could ever comprehend.
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GregB,
It doesn’t count as personal freedom if you can’t carry your assault weapon when you do it.
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Beautifully said, Greg B!
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Speaking of Western Europe (where I am as we speak): freedom also means 5-6 weeks paid vacations, 1 year maternity leave.
I never see these demanded in the US as if they felt somehow guilty about them. As if they would lose their “hard working people” status as a result.
When I meet Americans here, they are either college kids who run through Europe in 10 days, spending one day in Rome, Paris, London, etc, or I meet Americans in their seventies. I guess people between these two ages have no time to visit places where they would learn that 5 weeks of paid vacations do not bankrupt any economies.
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A French friend of mine said to me: There are two things you Americans don’t understand at all–healthcare and vacation.
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Bob About Americans understanding the meaning of health care and vacations . . . the systematic making of a low-level mindset got in the way. It’s called predatory capitalism.
And BTW, in such an environment of dead-end low-level Bill Gates-type horizons, it’s no wonder so many want to take Fentanyl and/or return to religious tribalism. CBK
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Agreed.
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In theory I agree. My Daughter living in England has some choice words for what the Right has done to the NHS. Since Thatcher the UK is the perfect example of back tracking on Social Progress from Labor to Health. A lot of it enabled by Xenophobia.
France and Italy dealing with fascists now. in addition to Hungary and Austria. There are Karen’s and Dawn’s in Western Europe as well.
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GregB
Her words were not quite as choice but I am fine with that description,
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Newsom for president.
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Something new.
Something true.
Newsome.
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SomNewDeal.
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better!
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His hair is a little too perfect.
I think he may be an alien — the outer space kind.
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That hair is astonishing, I must say.
I, too, had pretty plumage once.
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Not space. Democrats are born in Kenya.
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LCT: HAAAA!
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First Diane’s lovely reflection on the day. Now this. Lovely. And speaking of reflection:
“I know you,” she said.
“You do?” I said. “That’s astonishing. Tell me more. I have long wondered about this.”
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Thanks! Good for Newsom. 👍👍👍
TRUE.
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But you might not be able to buy a house or find affordable housing.
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Yeah. So many people want to live in California that this is a real problem.
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Ohio and West Virginia and Oklahoma and Tennessee, take note.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/desantis-war-on-woke-wants-to-keep-us-asleep-we-must-wake-up-and-learn-from-our-history/ar-AA1doVse?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0de8400ae2eb4efb89ea9add55825005&ei=16
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This proves that S. Carolina is full of some not-so-bright people. They are all a threat to our democracy. Trump doesn’t believe in God, family or country. He believes in getting more money for himself and becoming a dictator.
Trump’s South Carolina rally attracted crowd in range of 50,000 to 55,000, police chief estimates
Jul 02, 2023
PICKENS, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump marked a return to the large-scale rallies of his previous presidential campaigns, speaking to a massive crowd gathered in the streets of a small South Carolina city on a blazing summer weekend.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be to kick off the Fourth of July weekend than right here on Main Street, with thousands of hardworking South Carolina patriots who believe in God, family and country,” Trump said Saturday to a roaring crowd in downtown Pickens as temperatures climbed into the 90s…
The heavily Republican area is a popular one for GOP hopefuls as they aim to attract support for South Carolina’s first-in-the-South presidential primary. In recent months, other candidates including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have all held events in the Upstate, as well as the two South Carolinians in the race: former Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott…
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-trump-south-carolina-rally-20230702-k2pgtrrfifbntgo5vweiravlum-story.html
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Here is part of what Marianne Williamson, a candidate for President, has to say:
…When institutional realities such as slavery, the institutional oppression of women, the financial overreach of the Gilded Age, and segregation represented gross violations of the principles on which we stand, our ancestors responded with abolition, the women’s suffrage movement, the establishment of organized labor, and the civl rights movement. Allowing the principles of the Declaration of Independence to light their way, they forged a new course for our nation when we had lost our way.
Today, we have lost our way again, wandering in the darkness of entrenched economic hardship for the majority of Americans. The tentacles of corporate overreach, the spawn of trickle-down economics, now destroy the hopes and dreams of tens of millions of us. Due to the soulless corporate capture of our government, a lack of health care, starvation wages, the inability to find a home, lack of educational opportunity, crushing debt, mental health issues, violence on the streets, fear of looming environmental disasters, and attacks on their voting rights now stalk the lives of people for whom “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is at best some quaint relic of a time gone by.
No, our government has not done a bang up job.
It’s time for us to rescue the Declaration of Independence from its slide toward practical irrelevance. The greatest homage we can show our ancestors who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence is to do in our time what others have done in theirs; repudiate forces of injustice which violate its principles, reset the course of American history, and bequeath to our children the path to a more beautiful world…
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More than any people, in any place, California has bridged the historic expanse between freedom for some, and freedom for all.”
Except for the natives.
They burned that bridge long ago.
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Along with the wigwams
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newsom for president lol, california is a joke everyone who is smart is leaving like in new york. Same governor who was out partying like Whitmer during pandemic when everyone was supposed to be on lockdown, homeless issue is so out of control in cali. state sucks. Him and his relative pelosi can leave and never come back
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https://bulloakcapital.com/blog/if-california-were-a-country/
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But hey, Josh, don’t let any actual facts seep into your judgments. You have this thing going. . . .,
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“Cali state sucks” is such a cerebral, nuanced thesis, it’s difficult to refute. The last line being so particularly impactful, the one where Josh wrote about Governor Newsom that “him can leave and never come back,” I deign in the presence of such verisimilitudinous, ferine virtuality. Him sucks indeed!
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LCT,
Some assertions are so incredible that they are impossible to refute in plain language.
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Okay, here goes…born and raised in Cali. It is expensive. And we are taxed to death. Close to 40 million people, and I somehow survived on a teacher’s salary, but had to work two to three extra jobs including Saturdays and late nights in the classroom. The homelessness issue is concerning. It is up and down the state and especially down by the creeks. The human defecation is a concern, but the root of the issue is mental illness. I have seen it on the streets and in the classroom. A while back a friend told me, “Rick, you could do this job because you are retired as it pertained to human feces sanitation (six figure income). Wait, what are you saying dude? I grew up across the Bay from SF. SF is like a rose with thorns. But, it is like many cities where I have seen the homeless sleeping on benches, on the “L”, and roaming the streets of D.C. And, my real-eye opener was when I moved my son to San Diego. It was the first time any of our family lived in a Big City. Tents surrounded his apartment building while a multi-million dollar gym stood there as well. I watched as the City workers respectfully moved the homeless in the morning, power washed the streets, picked up all the trash, and did it again each day. It is an issue and I do not know the answer. I do know, though, a friend of mine tried to help a person with no home by setting her up in an apartment where she had a bathroom, shower, and such. By morning, she was gone and back out on the street. I do not know the answer. But, like anything (and Bob Shepherd is great at this) if one plays the percentages, it is not the entire state and everywhere you go — big cities, SF, LA, San Jose, and San Diego are hit the hardest. Have I witnessed the plethora of human poop? None. Just the dog owners who seem to think that picking up their dog’s poop, putting in a bag, and then throwing the bag back on the ground helps, hmmm? I do know when I meander down by our creek, there are lots of people who tend to live there, but hide well. And, I have seen a pile or two of human feces. My wife and I have often talked about moving, but we like our home and I rarely go to the big city. There are many people leaving CA for Texas. And businesses have relocated because of the CA taxes and such. But, as someone told me, “You move because the grass is greener, but can you deal with the politics?” Maybe, but that’s one’s choice. I do know, that people do not like Cali people moving into their state because the drive home prices up. So here are some facts for you all to peruse. And, we are not all “hippies and surfers”. In sum, we could play that game, “Would you rather…” I believe I would rather have someone profess “freedoms” than not. Politicians do what they do. And yes, he was recalled, but wiped out his competitor in a landslide. https://sfstandard.com/politics/san-franciscos-streets-are-dirty-but-just-how-dirty-exactly/
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But, if you are in for some “Nice News” try this. I like the young man through the power of reading helped Pearl Harbor vets. Enjoy. https://nicenews.com
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Rick, lovely story!
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The population has declined three years in a row. While this is likely due to many factors, the main reason has to be the lack of housing that’s affordable. The national average home price last year was $507,800; in California, it was $816,804.
The state leads the nation in homelessness. It has the lowest literacy rate. Among states it has the highest supplemental poverty rate. It suffers rolling blackouts in the dead heat of summer. And this is just a list of the most glaring challenges.
California has been sinking billions of dollars in a high-speed rail project that was supposed to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles and yet now is billions over budget, years behind schedule,
You prob wanted Avenatti to be president, too , he is in. jail.
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Amazing how the cult has no memory of the pandemic. These people literally surround you every time you are in public. These are the people who buy guns and get concealed carry permits or, if they’re lucky enough, they don’t need them.
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