Originally published at: California governor Gavin Newsom vetoes decriminalization of psychedelics and ban on caste discrimination | Boing Boing
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but but… his overall physiognomy! he has to be president eventually. just look at him!
(sour old political pundit: “Which one’ll win? Which one is taller?” [deep sigh])
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Man, it’s really too bad that there’s just no choice but to send in the cops for anything where the scientific and medical consensus isn’t ironclad and fully elaborated… Poor guy’s hands are just tied by the fact that the category of “medically uncertain but not improved by making it a police matter” actually doesn’t exist because reasons.
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I think Warren G. Harding as proof of concept was quite enough. And considering Donnie-two-bibles’, um, looks, it seems times have changed anyway.
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Ok, can we be done with this guy now? I’ve been saying for years that I don’t trust him.
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He’s also just vetoed a bill to create more affordable housing:
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What on Earth are you talking about? Look at this glistening specimen of patriotic manhood. (Just look at it!) This dude will defeat the Russian Ukrainian army single-handed.
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He seems to have very rapidly pivoted away from his liberal previous policies to be more moderate, or middle-of-the-road, if you prefer that term. He’s acting like a presidential candidate far sooner than he needs to for the 2028 election. I wonder if he knows something about 2024 that the rest of us don’t.
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Newsome’s not always known for doing the smartest things: this is the guy who was married to Kimberley Guilfoyle, after all.
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And right after that, dating a Scientologist.
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The biggest hurdle to researching psychedelics is their criminalization. He’s claiming more needs to be done to study them for his reason that he’s preventing more studies from being done.
This is at best disingenuous and will help produce a world where pharma companies hope to synthesize new psychedelics (that may work worse than existing ones but are patentable) and sell them with a state-granted monopoly. While of course still using existing drug laws to criminalize POC and bolster american social caste structures
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And before either of those partners he dated a 19-year-old while he was a 39-year-old newly elected mayor. Adding to the scandal, he took her to upscale social events where she was photographed holding glasses of champagne while under the legal drinking age.
And then there was the time he had an affair with his campaign manager’s wife.
No way around it, we’re going to hear a lot about Newsom’s questionable judgment relating to romantic partners once he officially announces his run for POTUS. Though it might not make that big of a difference now that Bill Clinton and Donald Trump lowered the public’s expectations for that kind of thing.
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I really want to like him. He has done some good things, but these latest vetoes are so obviously attempts to not be a “California Liberal” when he runs for president. As a California Liberal, he’s disqualifying himself in my eyes. Sorry Gavin, no vote for you.
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He’s really been vetoing all sorts of left-leaning legislation like crazy lately. His justifications are pretty thin, but I have to say that his veto on an anti-caste discrimination law is the worst. Pretending like it’s covered by existing law (which isn’t true) and a settled issue (when it clearly isn’t) is disproven by the very lobbying against the law which is what swayed him to veto it.
Yeah. He’s always struck me as someone who will change position to whatever he thinks will gain him the most at a given time. The fact he used to be married to Kimberly Guilfoyle alone indicates he doesn’t believe in anything or have any real scruples.
If that’s his motivation, it’s a strange one - he very, very publicly took on pro-immigrant (and pro-gay) positions that are going to be more damaging than any of these would, when it comes to conservative voters. I suspect it’s more about some shorter-term strategy/advantage.
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Anyone with knowledge of the legality at work here know if he’s wrong about that? It does seem like caste discrimination would be one of those things that would already be illegal but I’m not familiar with the nuances of anti-discrimination law.
ETA: OK, so from what I’ve read this is a big issue for the South Asian/Hindu community because it makes a lot of people feel like their group is being singled out for stigmatization. And that does actually make some sense.
Imagine an office break room has a sign by the microwave reading “please do not use this microwave to heat fish.” Everyone in the office agrees this is a sensible policy that everyone should abide by. Then, someone tacks up an additional sign underneath reading “Please do not use this microwave to heat Gefilte fish” or “Please do not use this microwave to heat fish between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday.” Suddenly what was a sensible rule feels like it’s being unneccessarily appended to specifically stigmatize Jewish people and Catholics, even though those activities were already covered under the blanket rule.
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I don’t really agree. He knows he’s not going to get the MAGA vote, and I doubt he wants it. As we discussed in another topic a few weeks back, no one really wants to fix immigration. Anyone with half a brain-- liberal or conservative-- realizes that immigrants are needed to pick the fruit, roof the houses, mow the lawns, etc. Citizens don’t want those jobs. Everybody knows it even if they won’t say so publicly. And nobody wants to pay $20 for a pint of strawberries.
It bothers me that he’s gone quiet on trans rights after being very supportive. He can’t really retreat; trans rights are becoming pretty well entrenched in California law. But he’s definitely shut up and become less vocally supportive within the last few months.
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Except that it will probably come down to a vote for him vs. a vote for a fascist, since there’s nobody on the Republican side that isn’t one.
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gov newsom’s shins have needed kicking a lot lately.
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Maybe that’s because those are very demanding and difficult jobs that rarely have decent pay or any kind of benefits? It’s not just laziness among citizens. These jobs are specifically designed to be low-wage, low status jobs, so that they can use highly exploited, undocumented workers.
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