Tag: gavin newsom

Gavin Newsom Just Gave California’s 800,000 Uber and Lyft Drivers a One-Way Ticket to the Unemployment Line

California Governor Gavin Newsom just gave his state’s Uber and Lyft drivers a one way ticket to the unemployment line.

Newsom signed a landmark agreement on Friday that would allow Uber and Lyft drivers to form a union.

The Democrat said at a press conference that the unionization deal will offer ride-hailing drivers a “voice, to give them choice, give them dignity and a say about their future.”

“I say that because it needs to be said: I’m not naive about how people are feeling about their future,” he explained.

California has become the second state in the nation, after Massachusetts, to allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unite at an industry level to negotiate for higher pay and benefits, such as health coverage.

The arrangement was finalized in August through talks between Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento, SEIU union officials, and representatives from Uber and Lyft.

The measure, known as AB 1340, was introduced by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Marc Berman and sponsored by SEIU California.

It establishes rules that allow app-based drivers to bargain collectively for improved wages and access to employee-style benefits, including health insurance.

Yet sadly, it does not take a genius to work out that all Newsom is condemning the state’s 800,000 Uber and Lyft drivers to losing their jobs altogether.

Companies such as Uber and Lyft are already aggressively driving down the wages earned by their drivers as part of their efforts to become profitable.

The decline in wages is also linked to the exploding popularity of ride-sharing as a profession, in many cases embraced by immigrants and people who are searching for more permanent work.

Nowadays, most long-time drivers reminisce about the “glory days” when they could earn a respectable living from their work.

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California Ends Kamala Harris’s Truancy Law Punishing Parents

California parents will no longer face arrest if their children miss school following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Oct. 1 decision to approve legislation repealing Kamala Harris’s truancy law.

The 2011 law that the former vice president sponsored when she served as the state’s attorney general made it a misdemeanor for parents if their children were chronically truant by missing 10 percent or more of school days, starting in kindergarten.

The law punished parents with a fine of up to $2,000 or one year in county jail. At the time, she said the bill was an “effective strategy” to reduce chronic elementary school truancy and a smart approach to crime prevention.

This week, Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 461 to end the criminalization of truancy for parents and remove the 2011 law from the state’s penal code. Newsom did not explain why he signed AB 461 in his press release about legislation decisions on Oct. 1. The bill, one of 105 bills signed into law that day, takes effect on Jan. 1.

The bill’s author, Assemblyman Patrick Ahrens, a Silicon Valley Democrat, called the truancy law a “failed policy.”

“Thank you to Gov. Newsom for signing my bill to repeal this failed policy of criminalizing struggling California families for their children missing school,” Ahrens said in a statement. “Fining or imprisoning parents did nothing to get kids the education and support they need.”

While California’s truancy law remained on the books for more than a decade, school districts were becoming less likely to enforce the punitive measures against parents, according to EdSource, a nonprofit educational resource focused on the state’s school systems.

The first arrests under the law were of five parents in Orange County in 2011. The parents were handcuffed and taken to Orange County Jail before being released on their own recognizance for ignoring repeated requests to get their children to school.

While parents have been arrested in California under the truancy law, it was unclear how many cases resulted in criminal charges. Most school districts instead went beyond the law to reach out to parents with emails, letters, and phone calls to resolve truancy problems, according to the California District Attorney’s Association.

The new law was sponsored by End Child Poverty California, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Several justice and parent organizations, including the California State Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), also supported it.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom Threatens to Withhold Billions from State Colleges Signing Trump ‘Compact’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to withhold billions in state funds from any college that signs an agreement to support President Donald Trump’s education agenda.

Deemed the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” the Trump administration seeks to require universities to adhere to “rules written by the administration in a variety of areas, including admissions, hiring, free speech on campus, teaching and the use of endowments,” per KCRA.

“Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below, if the institution elects to forego federal benefits,” the compact states.

Gavin Newsom denounced the compact as a “radical agreement” and pledged to withhold billions in state funds should any college cooperate with it.

“IF ANY CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY SIGNS THIS RADICAL AGREEMENT, THEY’LL LOSE BILLIONS IN STATE FUNDING — INCLUDING CAL GRANTS — INSTANTLY. CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM,” Newsom said in an intentionally uppercased statement as a troll of President Trump.

At least nine universities in the country have received the compact, with only one — University of Southern California (USC) — residing in the Golden State.

“USC is a private school that receives Cal Grants from the state. Cal Grants are part of the state’s financial aid program that provides funding to students that does not need to be paid back,” per KRCA.

“According to the California Department of Finance, USC received a total of $28.4 million in Cal Grant funding in the past year. The independent AICCU intuitions together received $227.6 million in total in that same year,” it added.

Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, said Newsom opposes the protection of free speech.

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‘Big losses’: Study confirms Newsom’s $20-an-hour minimum wage decimated industry

Gavin Newsom, California’s far-left Democrat governor, is known to have presidential aspirations.

If he chooses that path, one of issues on which he will face a grilling will be economics.

And a new study has revealed it won’t look good.

It’s because since he imposed a $20-an-hour minimum wage for fast food workers in his state, California has lost close to 20,000 such jobs.

“That’s nearly 25% of the country’s fast-food job losses during that same period, according to an analysis of quarterly data released this month from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” charged a report in the Washington Examiner.

“These grim statistics should be a wake-up call for Newsom and other policymakers pushing for drastic wage hikes that will cause unintended consequences,” said Rebekah Paxton, if the Employment Policies Institute.

The Examiner report noted Newsom “was all smiles two years ago when he signed the FAST Recovery Act, creating a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers in his state. He called the legislation a win-win-win that would benefit restaurant owners, their employees, and customers alike.”

But it’s actually left behind “big losses.”

Besides job losses, there have been staff cuts, huge menu price increases and a turn to automation, the report said.

“California made national headlines when two large Pizza Hut franchises laid off more than 1,200 in-house delivery drivers to cut costs, while others, such as Mod Pizza and Foster’s Freeze, decided to close up shop entirely,” the report noted.

Paxton said, “Newsom’s $20 wage has turned out to be nothing more than a boost to his own ego at the expense of fast food workers. His consistent claim that the law is a ‘win’ is out of touch with reality, and lawmakers looking to mirror his job-crushing policies should think twice.”

Further, the analysis found even workers who kept working lost.

“The law has cost nontipped restaurant workers 250 hours of work annually, according to the EPI analysis, which represents $4,000 in lost income under the state’s previous minimum wage for fast-food workers.”

And, according to the American Cornerstone Institute, it’s hit small businesses hardest.

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Gavin Newsom Escalates Rhetoric That Makes Political Violence Inevitable

Charlie Kirk was murdered less than three weeks ago by a deranged leftist who inscribed anti-fascist slogans on bullet casings. Kirk’s murder should have been a wake-up call that inflammatory rhetoric smearing conservatives as “fascists” or “Nazis” or “Hitler” has deadly consequences. Instead, it’s only emboldened the left to increase such rhetoric.

Nowhere is that more apparent than California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s official press account, which spent the weekend calling White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller a “fascist” and demanding Miller kowtow to the left if he wants to stop being slandered.

“STEPHEN MILLER IS A FASCIST!” the account posted on X on Sept. 26.

Newsom’s team doubled down on the rhetoric, saying they are “calling out [Trump] and his authoritarian stooges for being fascists.”

“Textbook definition,” Newsom’s team posted with a graphic they made claiming to prove Trump and Miller are “fascists.”

“DING DONGS IN THE WHITE HOUSE: IF YOU DON’T WANT US TO CALL YOU A FASCIST THEN STOP DOING FASCIST THINGS,” a separate post read.

This isn’t random name-calling. It’s an assassination prep campaign. The left — and in particular, the office of the governor of one of the largest states in America — is demonizing and vilifying conservatives as fascists in order to desensitize Americans to political violence.

Such language implicitly justifies resistance by any means necessary, since no free person wants to live under a fascist dictatorship. The logic goes: If Trump and his administration are legitimate fascists — the same people who slaughtered and oppressed millions during WWII — then violence against them is not merely permissible, it’s actually noble. The left preys on these historical associations, knowing that when people hear “fascist” or “Nazi,” they think of enemies who rightly had to be defeated. By blurring that line, the left conditions its audience to see violence against today’s so-called “fascists” as not only acceptable but necessary.

Even Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman has the clarity to see the danger of such rhetoric, posting on X: “Unchecked extreme rhetoric, like labels as Hitler or fascist, will foment more extreme outcomes. Political violence is always wrong — no exceptions.”

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California’s Ministry of Truth: SB 771 is Gov. Newsom’s and Democrat’s Plan to Ban Speech They Hate

California Governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats in the Legislature claim they want to regulate social media over hate speech. Senate Bill 771 by Sen. Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles) claims this is about “Personal rights: liability: social media platforms.”

SB 771 is an “anti free speech” bill, comes entirely from California Democrats, and is designed to silence opposing opinions. The bill is not about moderating hate speech; it’s about banning speech Democrats hate. 

This isn’t California Democrats’ first rodeo. In 2018, Democrat California lawmakers pushed legislation to create jack-boot agents of government through a “Fake News Advisory Council” – an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” for the news they don’t like, I reported. “After having my Capitol Press Credential revoked in 2015 and only reissued after an Open Records Act request of 10-years of press credential applications, and viable threats of a First Amendment lawsuit, it appears Democrats in the California Legislature still don’t believe in making no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

That obviously stands today, 10 years later.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

In April 2022, the Biden administration announced it had created the Disinformation Governance Board – its own Ministry of Truth – a part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Americans from all walks of life were horrified. Fortunately for the potential enemies of the state, the board’s executive director and disinformation czar Nina Jankowicz had already beclowned herself in videos that went viral, demonstrating her stunning bias and partisanship. Within three weeks the Biden Disinformation Governance Board was shut down, and many Americans heaved a sigh of relief.

But not California Democrats.

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Newsom Claims Trump is Trying to Rig the Midterms, Says ‘I Fear That We Will Not Have an Election in 2028’

California governor and likely Democrat presidential nominee Gavin Newsom has claimed that he is scared there will not be a 2028 election.

Newsom made the comments while speaking to Stephen Colbert on CBS’s “The Late Show” on Tuesday.

The governor began by discussing how a national divorce is “not an option.”

“Look, it’s not complicated. Divorce is not an option,” Newsom began. “I mean, at the end of the day, we got to figure out a way to live together and dance together across our differences.“

Newsom continued, “People need to understand what motivates them, how they keep winning in the context of how they keep organizing and building a coalition, particularly young man Charlie Kirk, and what he was able to do. So he was kind enough to fly out. We spent an hour and a half together.“

He explained how the Democrats need to figure out their weaknesses and “make up for our failures in the past.”

“So, look, I just I think it’s important to have those civil engagements. I think it’s important to dialog. It’s important to learn from your opponents, and it’s important to reconcile your weaknesses. As the Democratic Party, we have a lot of work to do to make up for our failures in the past.”

Newsom went on to claim that Trump is trying to rig the midterm elections, likely referring to redistricting efforts, and that he is scared that the next presidential election will not happen.

“We got crushed in this last election, and now we’re in a position where we are struggling to communicate. We’re struggling, to win back now, the majority in the House of Representatives. And that’s a big part of what I’m doing. Not just today in terms of the work out here, raising money, but also raising awareness around how Donald Trump is trying to rig the midterm elections and how I fear that we will not have an election in 2028. I really mean that. And the core of my soul, unless we wake up to the code red, what’s happening in this country, and we wake up soberly, to how serious this moment is.”

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These 2 Terrible Tech Bills Are on Gavin Newsom’s Desk

The California state Senate recently sent two tech bills to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. If signed, one could make it harder for children to access mental health resources, and the other would create the most annoying Instagram experience imaginable.

The Leading Ethical AI Development (LEAD) for Kids Act prohibits “making a companion chatbot available to a child unless the companion chatbot is not foreseeably capable of doing certain things that could harm a child.” The bill’s introduction specifies the “things” that could harm a child as genuinely bad stuff: self-harm, suicidal ideation, violence, consumption of drugs or alcohol, and disordered eating.

Unfortunately, the bill’s ambiguous language sloppily defines what outputs from an AI companion chatbot would meet these criteria. The verb preceding these buckets is not “telling,” “directing,” “mandating,” or some other directive, but “encouraging.”

Taylor Barkley, director of public policy for the Abundance Institute, tells Reason that, “by hinging liability on whether an AI ‘encourages’ harm—a word left dangerously vague—the law risks punishing companies not for urging bad behavior, but for failing to block it in just the right way.” Notably, the bill does not merely outlaw operators from making chatbots available to children that encourage self-harm, but those that are “foreseeably capable” of doing so.

Ambiguity aside, the bill also outlaws companion chatbots from “offering mental health therapy to the child without the direct supervision of a licensed or credentialed professional.” While traditional psychotherapy performed by a credentialed professional is associated with better mental health outcomes than those from a chatbot, such therapy is expensive—nearly $140 on average per session in the U.S., according to wellness platform SimplePractice. A ChatGPT Plus subscription costs only $20 per month. In addition to its much lower cost, the use of AI therapy chatbots has been associated with positive mental health outcomes.

While California has passed a bill that may reduce access to potential mental health resources, it’s also passed one that stands to make residents’ experiences on social media much more annoying. California’s Social Media Warning Law would require social media platforms to display a warning for users under 17 years old that reads, “the Surgeon General has warned that while social media may have benefits for some young users, social media is associated with significant mental health harms and has not been proven safe for young users,” for 10 seconds upon first opening a social media app each day. After using a given platform for three hours throughout the day, the warning is displayed again for a minimum of 30 seconds—without the ability to minimize it—”in a manner that occupies at least 75 percent of the screen.”

Whether this vague warning would discourage many teens from doomscrolling is dubious; warning labels do not often drastically change consumers’ behaviors. For example, a 2018 Harvard Business School study found that graphic warnings on soda decreased the share of sugar drinks purchased by students over two weeks by only 3.2 percentage points, and a 2019 RAND Corporation study found that graphic warning labels have no effect on discouraging regular smokers from purchasing cigarettes.

But “platforms aren’t cigarettes,” writes Clay Calvert, a technology fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “[they] carry multiple expressive benefits for minors.” Because social media warning labels “don’t convey uncontroversial, measurable pure facts,” compelling them likely violates the First Amendment’s protections against compelled speech, he explains.

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She’s Turning on Everyone: Cackling Kamala Harris to Publish Private Messages Showing Gavin Newsom Snubbed Her Endorsement

Kamala Harris is now “social distancing” from the Democrat Party—a peculiar strategy Harris will unleash Tuesday, September 23, in the form of her 2024 presidential campaign memoir, 107 Days.

The Gateway Pundit reported that, in excerpts from 107 Days, Harris refers to White House staff as being “hypnotized” during Joe Biden’s ill-fated 2024 presidential run.

“‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high,” Harris wrote.

Harris further unloaded on Biden for intimidating her during a phone call just before she was defeated by President Trump in a pivotal September 2024 debate. Per Harris, Biden told her:

“My brother called. He’s been talking to a group of real power brokers in Philly.”

Harris continued:

“His brother told him that those guys were not going to support me because I’d been saying bad things about him… [He] made it all about himself, distracting me with worry about hostile power-brokers in the biggest city of the most important state.”

In 107 Days, Harris also confesses that she lied to the American people regarding Biden’s failing health, and she demeans her running mate Tim Walz, along with Pete Buttigieg and Gavin Newsom.

Harris grotesquely implies she only selected Tim Walz as her running mate over Pete Buttigieg because Walz was a “straight white man.”

“[Buttigieg] would have been an ideal partner—if he were a straight white man,” Harris wrote. “But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a Black woman, married to a Jewish man.”

Inadvertently, Harris’s comment underscores everything rotten about identity politics. By outwardly assuming elections can be swayed by the homophobia of swing state voters, Harris herself commits the truly homophobic act of denying Buttigieg, against her better judgment—only later to insult Buttigieg, Walz, gay Americans, and everyday Americans.

As Harris today implements her shocking scorched-earth political strategy against the Democrat Party, Real Clear Politics finds her polling 16 points below Gavin Newsom for the 2028 Democrat Party presidential nomination.

Hilariously, a new Politico report reveals that, according to 107 Days, Gavin Newsom brushed off Harris’s immediate request for an endorsement with the words: “Hiking. Will call back.”

According to Harris’s notes: “He never did.”

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Team Gavin Newsom Posts an Apparent Threat to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem – Trump Admin Responds With Fire – Newsom Statement Referred to Secret Service

California Governor Gavin Newsom sparked an uproar on Saturday after his team posted a cryptic message to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

As TGP readers know, Newsom has made himself the leader of the resistance against the Trump Administration, particularly on the issue of illegal immigration. This feud has been heightened ever since Trump sent ICE agents to LA to round up illegals earlier this year.

Perhaps with this in mind, Newsom’s press team posted a tweet that many read as a threat on Noem’s life. It was certainly vague enough to be interpreted that way.

The post reads, “Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today. “You’re welcome, America.”

Kristi Noem is going to have a bad day today.

You’re welcome, America.

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) September 20, 2025

As TGP readers know, several accounts on X posted somewhat similar statements shortly before Charlie Kirk was assassinated. For example, one account, “Fujoshincel,” posted on September 5 about “something BIG coming soon.”

They urged followers to check the news. Five days later, shortly after Kirk’s death was confirmed, they quoted the post and wrote, “Well that’s that,” and followed up by saying, “Another Chud Bites the Dust.”

The Trump Administration agreed that Team Newsom’s tweet looked like a threat. Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin slammed Newsom for hiding behind a keyboard to ‘threaten’ Noem when he’s too cowardly to trash-talk her to her face.

“This reads like a threat,” McLaughlin wrote. “This is ugly, @GavinNewsom.”

“Your keyboard warrior team may hide behind their laptops and spew this kind of vitriol but you would never have the guts to say this to her face,” she added.

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