USA 2020 Elections: Thread

[grarpamp]

> Democrats in trouble... Highland Park not a good look for them...
>
> California not a good look either...
>
> "The California Dream" Has Become "The California Cesspool"


Gavin Newsom’s Weird Idea of ‘Freedom’ California...

https://www.theepochtimes.com/gavin-newsoms-weird-idea-of-freedom_4597999.html

In a run-up to what's likely to be a 2024 presidential bid, California
Gov. Gavin Newsom hit upon the bizarre idea of boasting in commercials
that California is America’s true “free” state.

Part of his ad campaign is to attack Florida—currently run by Newsom’s
possible rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Yet, with the most burdensome regulations and high tax rates, Newsom’s
California is arguably the most unfree state in the union.

In return for these steep costs, the state’s public institutions,
infrastructure, and services are among the country’s worst.

California’s once-vaunted freeway system is near the bottom of all state
comparisons. California’s Highway 99, which runs the length of the
Central Valley, is one of the deadliest roads in America based on miles
driven.

Over half the nation’s homeless crowd the state’s major cities.
One-third of America’s welfare recipients have flooded into the state. A
fifth of the resident population lives below the poverty line. Well over a
quarter of Golden State residents weren't born in the United States.

California public school test scores consistently fall among the bottom 10
states. San Francisco has the highest per capita property crime rate in
the country.

The recently recalled San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and his
soon-to-be recalled Los Angeles counterpart, George Gascón, have nearly
ruined their cities. Both are iconic of multibillionaire George Soros’
nationwide efforts to undermine the entire criminal justice system.

State residents aren't free to drive safely because of their decrepit
freeways. They aren't free from filthy and toxic sidewalks or dangerous
physical assault in their major cities.

Public school children aren't free to enjoy competitive educations. San
Franciscans aren't free to park their cars without fearing that they will
be vandalized or stolen.

The destruction of these freedoms is in direct proportion to the
confiscatory taxes that the state collects—the highest bracket of income
and gasoline rates in the nation, among the highest sales taxes, and
property taxes that soar due to inflated assessments in spite of a 1978
state constitutional amendment.

Currently, California faces brownouts due to the longstanding, deliberate
curtailment of electrical generation plants.

Yosemite’s historic redwood forest is currently threatened with what are
now customary California summer conflagrations.

The destructive, dirty forest fires reflect a deliberate state policy of
not gleaning the forests of dead trees, but rather letting the flammable
debris serve as “natural” fodder for bugs and birds.

The state hasn't built a major reservoir in nearly 40 years.

In rarer wet years, millions of acre-feet of runoff and snowmelt simply
cascade to the sea. Releasing such vital water apparently enhances
19th-century riparian landscapes—and discourages its own agribusiness.

Amid Newsom’s anti-Florida ad campaign, the governor was vacationing at
the upscale digs of his Montana in-laws—escorted by his ample state-paid
security detail. That's odd, given Newsom’s California labels Montana a
homophobic hellhole, and won't even reimburse state employees who dare to
convention there.

Hypocrisy and elite virtue signaling, however, are now trademarks of
California politicians—and illustrate how little elected officials care
for the victims of their ideological agendas.

Newsom bragged about his tough California mask mandate although it didn't
lower COVID-19 deaths per capita in any measurable degree than did the
policies of the red states he so often trashes. He violated his own COVID
mandates by dining at the upscale French Laundry restaurant and hanging
out unmasked with Magic Johnson.

Newsom has done nothing to remedy his state’s soaring gas prices,
terrible schools and infrastructure, or spiking crime. But he did virtue
signal about giving illegal aliens millions of state dollars in COVID
relief.

Rather than develop California’s rich gas and oil reserves, Newsom
promised strapped motorists that he would send them a one-time fuel gift
of $400.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), likewise, hectors Californians to
mask and quarantine—all the better for her to sneak around unmasked at
her hairdresser’s, or to jet to the beaches of Tuscany.

Former senator and current Chinese government lobbyist Barbara Boxer
retired to an estate in Rancho Mirage, and recent Gov. Jerry Brown
isolated himself on his 2,500 acres in Grass Valley—idyllic locations
far away from the education, infrastructure, and urban disasters that
exploded under their tenures.

So it's Orwellian for Newsom to brag about a “free” California that
supposedly will entice Floridians or Texans. In truth, over the last
decades, hundreds of thousands of Californians and billions of dollars of
wealth fled the now-inert California for a far freer Florida and Texas,
among other states.

By voting with their feet and bank accounts, California’s expatriates
considered these destinations far superior to their home state: safer,
cheaper, better managed, and freer.

Newsom resembles a pathetic owner of a once-successful but now run-down,
high-priced gas station without clients. In jealousy, he flails and
screams at the newer, gleaming competitor across the street, with superior
service, lower prices, and better value—and jampacked with his own
former but now wiser customers.