Gavin Newsom’s Racism and Sexism

This is made manifest in the kerfuffle over who he has said he’ll appoint as a California Senator should sitting Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) retire before the end of her term in January 2025.

Newsom drew criticism for not appointing a Black woman to replace Kamala Harris when she assumed the vice presidency and has since vowed to do so should he receive another chance to appoint a senator.

Notice that. Newsom doesn’t say he would appoint Feinstein’s replacement on the basis of qualification for the position, on the basis of being able to function effectively as a representative of that person’s California constituents, on the basis of merit. No, he said he’d appoint someone on the basis of his first and most important criteria: that the person would be black and a woman.

Appointing someone to office because that person is black is blatantly racist.

Appointing someone to office because that person is a woman is naked sexism.

Newsom is looking to score a two-fer.

Opening up for Election Fraud

Washington’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Jay Inslee has signed into law yet another pathway to illegal voting. This new election law

allows people to register online to vote in the state by providing the last four digits of a Social Security Number and an electronic signature.

Never mind that those “last four” are broadly publicly available. Never mind that electronic signatures far too often don’t even remotely resemble a person’s actual signature: it’s done by clicking a link labeled with words to the effect of “by clicking this link, you’re certifying you are who you say you are and electronically signing,” or by presenting a signature field wherein you squiggle something with your finger or with your mouse.

Now anyone can vote in Washington, and do so multiple times; the putative voter needs only access to multiple “last fours,” and then he can “electronically” sign multiple voter forms.

What a boon for Washington citizens, especially the non-real ones.

Gone Too Woke

Speak the truth, and be fired. Hurt someone’s feelings with that truth, and be banned altogether from your profession.

That’s what has happened to a teacher in Great Britain, a public school teacher who happens to be Christian, after having mistakenly “misgendered” (can there even be such a thing in a sane world?) a secondary school student and then compounding his sin by speaking honestly about his thoughts on gay marriage when a student asked.

The United Kingdom’s Teaching Regulation Authority, which regulates teaching and deals with serious misconduct, found that [the] former math teacher at a public secondary school in Oxford, failed to treat a student with “dignity and respect” by “misgendering” biologically female student who identified as male, the Christian Legal Centre, which has been representing [the teacher], said Tuesday.

The TRA followed up by banning the teacher from teaching indefinitely, although the agency magnanimously permitted him to appeal in 2025. Sure. As a saying goes in the US military, “Disapproved. Resubmit in 90 days for further disapproval.”

This is where our nation is headed, if we don’t step up. “Be like Europe” is the Left’s mantra, and this business in Great Britain is an example of the disaster that would be.

A Progressive-Democrat’s Proposal to Combat Shoplifting

At first glance, this looks like progress after California’s decision to completely condone decriminalize shoplifting if the amount stolen was less than around $1,000 on any single hit. But in reality, it’s just more progressivism.

New York City’s Progressive-Democrat mayor Eric Adams thinks it’s good to deal with shoplifters in the city whose mayoral mansion he occupies in this way, among others:

  • train the shoplifting victim’s employees to de-escalate
  • put kiosks in shoplifting victim stores so shoplifters, at the start of their spree, can call social service
  • allow shoplifters to avoid prosecution or incarceration by “meaningfully” engaging with those services

Unfortunately, this is just more Progressive-Democrat coddling of criminals; it’ll have no useful effect on shoplifting—or on any other NYC crime.

Journalism Revisionist History

The Irish Times ran a story claiming that using fake—spray—tans was somehow cultural appropriation, and the news outlet chastised white women who used it.

The story itself turned out to have been faked. OK, no big deal; embarrassing as the IT‘s error was, it really falls in the category of stuff happens. That’s not the problem.

On discovering that the paper had been victimized by “a deliberate and coordinated deception,” the editorial staff took “corrective” action. The error—the being duped—

…prompted us to remove [the fake article] from the site and to initiate a review….

This is cowardly and dishonest. Kudos to The Irish Times Editor Ruadhán Mac Cormaic for acknowledging the error (on Sunday after the fake article’s Thursday publication, a pretty prompt response given the research required to confirm the fakery); however, the honest response would have been to leave the article up with a disclaimer, one that summarizes Mac Cormaic’s editorial, posted at the head of the article.

Instead, those journalists have chosen to erase that bit of real history and, as the editorial response fades into memory on Monday or Tuesday, to pretend that that history never actually happened.

This is yet another example of why the press guild cannot be trusted.