Miles Taylor was the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump 1.0 Administration. In this MSNBC report, he talks about how the grownups back then restrained Trump’s police-state mentality. And how Trump spoke about invoking the Insurrection Act as “using my magical powers.” (1)
The Trumpistas no doubt saw Newsom’s recent pandering to rightwingers as weakness. And they were right to think so. But, for the moment, Newsom is acting like a real Democrat who fights for the Constitution and for his own side.
Not convicting Trump on the impeachment charges after his criminal insurrection at the US Capitol was one of the worst decisions Congress ever made. That would have prevented him from running for President again and would have allowed the Trump insurrectionists to be prosecuted without Trump being able to pardon them.
I have to give California Gavin Newsom credit for his stand at the moment. He may go back to pandering to sleazy rightwing podcasters and bitching about The Trans and homeless people, like he has been doing for months. But here, he’s sounding more than a bit like Jerry Brown telling Trump to stick it: (2)
I didn’t know Newsom had it in him. I just hope he keeps it up for a while!
Notes:
(1) Folks need to wake up': Miles Taylor reacts to Trump's National Guard deployment in L.A. MSNBC 06/08/2025.<https://youtu.be/ypGU6_Hyw14?si=T4wBF7IQP6CLIq8t> (Accessed: 2025-09-06).
(2) "STONE COLD LIAR!" Gov. Newsom SHUTS DOWN Trump for inciting violence in LA. Brian Tyler Cohen YouTube channel 06/09/2025. <https://youtu.be/Q1MRX1IMSjo?si=LXgGEAzQ7jIeD-dA> (Accessed: 2025-09-06).
Showing posts with label gavin newsom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gavin newsom. Show all posts
Monday, June 9, 2025
Friday, April 10, 2020
Confederate "Heritage" Month 2020, April 10: John Calhoun and ... Gavin Newsom?
Bloomberg Opinion seems to be up to a bit of journalistic mischief in this piece by Francis Wilkinson, Gavin Newsom Declares California a ‘Nation-State’ 04/09/2020.
My initial impression is that Wilkinson took what was probably a careless formulation by Newsom and treated it as the declaration of a new Confederacy.
But, no California hasn't adopted "Bonnie Blue Flag" as it's state song. This is another song from Elizabeth Knight and The Harvesters, this one being a popular Confederate song. From the liner notes to Songs of the Civil War (1960):
Getting back to Newsom's comment, California's Jerry Brown was the most militant of the governors in confronting Trump during the Orange Clown's first two years in office, and he was open about using California's full legitimate federalist power to resist bad and abusive Trump policies.
But Newsom is more of a showboat than Brown. No one can detract from his bold move on same-sex marriage as San Francisco mayor in 2004. And he has done a genuinely good job on the COVID-19 crisis.
Jerry, despite his occasional techie-utopian talk, was grounded in the old pro-labor, social-democratic (although the Dems didn't call it that) New Deal tradition, and in leftie-Jesuit liberation theology. He was consistently a defenders of immigrant rights and very prominently supported the farmworkers union, for instance. Yes, his fracking policy, wasn't ideal. But he was grounded.
Newsom isn't. At least not to the degree Jerry Brown is.
When Newsom became Lieutenant Governor, Jerry appointed him to head a state economic development commission. When Newsom announced that he wanted to look to Texas (!?!) as a model for state economic development, Jerry took him off the commission. And, so far as I saw, kept Newsom at a distance politically. And although in this universe, spouses differ on some political issues, when Newsom was SF mayor and doing the same-sex marriages, he was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, who went on after their divorce to become a FOX News propagandist and, now, of course, Don Trump, Jr.'s., girlfriend. I’m just sayin’.
The Bloomberg Opinion piece obviously makes a big deal about Newsom’s "nation-state" comment and at the end even invokes John Calhoun, the patron saint of everything vile and evil in American politics since 1832, to make it sound like Newsom is going full neo-Confederate. I'm inclined to think that the "nation-state" comment was a careless formulation, one that Jerry Brown would not have made.
But Gavin Newsom as John Calhoun and Donald Trump as his arch-enemy Andrew Jackson? No, that's insane. For all his faults, on his deathbed Jackson said that his one regret in life was that he hadn't hanged Calhoun as a traitor over his secessionist stand in the Nullification Controversy.
My initial impression is that Wilkinson took what was probably a careless formulation by Newsom and treated it as the declaration of a new Confederacy.
But, no California hasn't adopted "Bonnie Blue Flag" as it's state song. This is another song from Elizabeth Knight and The Harvesters, this one being a popular Confederate song. From the liner notes to Songs of the Civil War (1960):
The two most important Rebel music-makers were an itinerant vaudevillian, Harry Macarthy, and a transplanted New Englander, John Hill Hewitt. Macarthy s best known work is "Bonnie Blue Flag" ...The Bonnie Blue flag was an informal but popular banner celebrating secession, the Confederacy, and treason against the United States.
This "parade of secession" song was the Confederacy's second most popular air, following close on the heels of "Dixie" in Southern affections. Macarthy was an English-born vaudevillian who is supposed to have written this stirring lyric early in 1861 while attending the Mississippi State Secession Convention.
Getting back to Newsom's comment, California's Jerry Brown was the most militant of the governors in confronting Trump during the Orange Clown's first two years in office, and he was open about using California's full legitimate federalist power to resist bad and abusive Trump policies.
But Newsom is more of a showboat than Brown. No one can detract from his bold move on same-sex marriage as San Francisco mayor in 2004. And he has done a genuinely good job on the COVID-19 crisis.
Jerry, despite his occasional techie-utopian talk, was grounded in the old pro-labor, social-democratic (although the Dems didn't call it that) New Deal tradition, and in leftie-Jesuit liberation theology. He was consistently a defenders of immigrant rights and very prominently supported the farmworkers union, for instance. Yes, his fracking policy, wasn't ideal. But he was grounded.
Newsom isn't. At least not to the degree Jerry Brown is.
When Newsom became Lieutenant Governor, Jerry appointed him to head a state economic development commission. When Newsom announced that he wanted to look to Texas (!?!) as a model for state economic development, Jerry took him off the commission. And, so far as I saw, kept Newsom at a distance politically. And although in this universe, spouses differ on some political issues, when Newsom was SF mayor and doing the same-sex marriages, he was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, who went on after their divorce to become a FOX News propagandist and, now, of course, Don Trump, Jr.'s., girlfriend. I’m just sayin’.
The Bloomberg Opinion piece obviously makes a big deal about Newsom’s "nation-state" comment and at the end even invokes John Calhoun, the patron saint of everything vile and evil in American politics since 1832, to make it sound like Newsom is going full neo-Confederate. I'm inclined to think that the "nation-state" comment was a careless formulation, one that Jerry Brown would not have made.
But Gavin Newsom as John Calhoun and Donald Trump as his arch-enemy Andrew Jackson? No, that's insane. For all his faults, on his deathbed Jackson said that his one regret in life was that he hadn't hanged Calhoun as a traitor over his secessionist stand in the Nullification Controversy.
Monday, November 19, 2018
Jerry Brown on the California fires
Trump was in California meeting with Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom about the horrible fires going on there now. Here is a video of Jerry talking about the meeting and the fire situation, California Gov. Jerry Brown says President Trump has "got our back" in wildfire recovery Face the Nation 11/18/2018
- Current news report on the fires:Vincent Moleski and Michael McGougha, Camp Fire update: 77 now dead, 993 still listed as missing Sacramento Bee 11/18/2018
- Anousha Sakoui et al, Phones fail in California fires, highlighting cell vulnerability SFGate.com 11/19/2018: "Mobile service falls short of old-fashioned landlines when it comes to surviving catastrophic events."
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