Yesterday, Gavin Newsom was twice asked to acknowledge that the Recall is not a “coup,” as his supporters and the head of his Party claimed. He refused to do so.
At Dodger Stadium, a reporter asked Newsom, “Did you or anyone on your political team advise the California Democratic Party to refer to the Recall as a coup?” He replied, ”Yeah, I’m focused on vaccine distributions.” So the reporter asked again, “Do you disagree with the characterization of it as a coup?” Newsom refused to answer again, even as he freely answered questions on other topics.
The “California Coup” press conference was given a “Pants on Fire” rating by Capital Public Radio: “Even in the bounds of political rhetoric,” the fact check concluded, it was “far off base and wildly inaccurate,” since a “coup is a violent overthrow of a government” while a “recall is a legally sanctioned effort” that’s “been part of California’s constitution for more than a century.”
In a scathing editorial, the LA Times said the event “undermined the state’s legitimate direct democracy system.” For a Governor who’s denied the people of California any voice in our government, his refusal to recognize the legitimacy of a challenge to his own power is yet another reason to support the Recall.
Those reasons keep piling up, even as Newsom’s operatives are trying to trivialize the Recall by saying it’s just about Newsom “going out to dinner.” Consider just a few news items from this week:
• Lockdowns: Newsom’s irrational lockdowns continue while even Andrew Cuomo now says “we simply cannot stay closed” and “we must reopen the economy.”
• Schools: Newsom just released 51 pages of unscientific and impractical school reopening requirements designed to keep schools closed the whole year – which we’ve known was the endgame all along.
• EDD: The backlog of claims, including suspensions, is approaching 2.2 million while the losses from fraud have grown to $9 billion.
• Incompetence: California is 49th in vaccine distribution, which to be fair, is one better than we’ve done in other areas.
It’s no wonder a recent Politico story was headlined, “It’s all fallen apart” for Newsom. The consultant who led the Gray Davis Recall now says there is an “80 to 85 percent chance” the Newsom Recall will qualify for the ballot.
The current signature count: 1.1 million.