RECALL GOVERNOR NEWSOM!

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #323

Many times in this series I have stated that it is our government, and if it’s not working we have no one to blame but ourselves.  Today the government of California is not working for “We the People.”  Instead crass and hypocritical politics are overcoming common sense and integrity to harm our children financially with increasing debt, to grant public employee’s unions all of the salaries and fringe benefits that they seek; and opportunist politicians are literally buying people’s votes with our tax money.  It is truly time to recall the head of California’s government as a demonstration that “We the People” must still be in charge.  Why Newsom in particular?  Let me count the reasons:

• I was raised, among other things, on the saying that “God Hates Hypocrites!” and I believe it.   While mandating the closure of virtually all of California’s public schools, Governor Newsom continued to send his own four children to an in-person private school!  That’s called hypocrisy!
• Governor Newsom arbitrarily closed some businesses he deemed to be “non-essential,” while arbitrarily keeping many of their larger competitors open.  This unnecessarily caused many thousands of businesses permanently to close and many hundreds of thousands of jobs permanently to be lost.  (I’m sure you know several restaurants and other businesses that have been severely damaged if not lost!)
• Under his “leadership,” California’s Employment Development Department (or EDD) handed out billions of our tax dollars for fraudulent unemployment claims!  And there has been no accountability since that time as to how and why it happened!
• Under his highly inadequate forestry management approach, wildfires have destroyed increasingly large swaths of California.  And he has also publicly exaggerated about California’s fire mitigation measures by a factor of nine!
• Governor Newsom has given over a billion dollars in no-bid contracts to many of his major donors!
• Governor Newsom was responsible for $226 million in behested payments by donors to programs and charities of his choosing.  The term “behested” is defined as an earnest or strongly-worded request.  (How beholden did that make Governor Newsom to those donors?)
• Governor Newsom, after 16 months, still refuses to give up his “emergency powers” and restore constitutional protections that safeguard individual rights!
• Throughout his term as governor, Governor Newsom’s wife has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary from the non-profit she works with, and that non-profit’s contributions quadrupling beginning in 2015 – right after he announced his candidacy for governor!  (Don’t you agree that this fails the “smell” test?)
• Governor Newsom signed legislation that changed the rules of the recall election – right in the midst of that recall process.  We teach our kids not to change the rules midway through the game. It’s called cheating!
• And, of course, Governor Newsom hypocritically attended that indoor French Laundry dinner at a time that his administration had banned all inside restaurant dining.  And, BTW, the crowd of donors at the dinner was also above the state-imposed limit!

Regardless of your political views, do you care about these matters?  Does Governor Newsom represent your values?  Is he an example of a person, much less a governor, you want your children to emulate?  After this recall election we will all look back and either think: “Boy, recalling Governor Newsom will really bring accountability and deter other elected officials from acting like he did, while at the same time encouraging other people with integrity to seek elective office,” or “Boy did we blow it by not recalling Governor Newsom, because now it looks like we don’t care about hypocrisy and corruption.”  I vote for the former, and hope you seriously consider doing the same.  And if you will, please forward these thoughts to your social media friends.

Story for the week from the “You just can’t make these things up” department: Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn’t control himself during a lineup.  When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words: “Give me all your money or I’ll shoot,” the man shouted “That’s not what I said!”