East Oakland Dad on X - "An Oakland father takes his kids to the park to play baseball, but the gate is locked. The sidewalk is blocked by illegal dumping. Oakland deserves better. cc: @BarbaraLee_CA"
Garry Tan on X - "This is a special kind of American nightmare: blue cities like Oakland run by career bureaucrats, bought and paid for by grifting nonprofits Oakland has a $2.1B per year budget A child can’t even play baseball in their local park"
The Bay Area is getting old — fast. It will change everything - "For years we’ve heard of the potential economic doom spiral circling San Francisco, where a massive city budget deficit fueled by remote work leads to poorer services and even more residents fleeing. But another threat has been building in relative silence. The Bay Area is getting old fast, and it’s accelerating. Though aging is a global trend, the San Francisco metro area — which includes San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Marin counties — is already the third-oldest among 20 of the largest regions in the U.S., trailing only two places in Florida. And no other region is growing older at a quicker pace... In Berkeley, we found a once-vibrant neighborhood that is now essentially a retirement community of single-family homes. In Sonoma County, we visited a city with a family-friendly reputation that lost 35% of its children in a decade... It’s not all doom and gloom. We also found some industries thriving. A longevity clinic in South San Francisco serves patients who pay as much as $19,000 a year in a bid to live longer. And it’s an excellent time to be offering financial services such as estate planning to the elderly... Two Berkeley neighborhoods, Thousand Oaks and Northbrae, have median ages nearing 60. What makes these places remarkable is that, unlike most older communities, they don’t include nursing homes or senior care centers. Most of the residents have been living there for over 20 years, according to a Chronicle analysis of census data... The region will need more senior housing and services like home health aides, a difficult lift in an area with some of the nation’s highest construction costs and a labor shortage for skilled caregivers... Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, notes that the number of younger people without college degrees was already dropping before COVID, while educated young people continued moving in, many for tech jobs. But post-pandemic, the number of educated young people has also declined. To make matters worse, when residents do decide to have kids, they become more likely to leave the city, according to surveys. “It’s a major trigger point,” Egan said. “People bump into space limitations in a rent-controlled apartment.” For those lucky enough to be homeowners, California’s landmark property tax cap, Proposition 13, has kept annual increases low. But there’s a downside: studies show a “lock-in” effect that discourages homeowners from moving out and potentially downsizing, constraining the supply of new listings. That has helped fuel both San Francisco’s aging-in-place trend and the brutally expensive housing market."
Time for even more rent control and zoning restrictions to "protect" residents, ie. ossify the area even more, and more regulation to increase construction costs and worsen labour shortages even more
Immigrants and Health in California - Public Policy Institute of California - "In March 2021, 66% of California adults supported health care coverage for undocumented immigrants, up from 54% in 2015."
Time to 'tax the 'rich'' to pay for this
The San Francisco Standard on X - "Exclusive: Days before the new school year, SFUSD told parents that their kids had been automatically enrolled in an ethnic studies class covering racism, colonialism, and more. Some see an ideological agenda. 📝: Ezra Wallach and Anya Kaiser"
i/o on X - "Percentage of black 7th grade students proficient in math in San Francisco public schools: 2%."
Gavin Newsom trashed California. Worse, he might win the presidency - "“How do you win elections when you keep losing your voters?,” asks a pained Shawn Steel, the GOP national committeeman for California. California’s conservatism was rooted in the migration of voters from the Mid-West and South, who found in the Golden State an outlet for their material aspirations. But over the past two decades, over 2.6 million net domestic migrants have left – equal to the population of San Francisco, Anaheim and San Diego combined – and many, according to IRS estimates, are concentrated among the middle class family-age population. Left behind is a rapidly ageing population, as well as a large coterie of affluent professionals, state-dependent individuals and, most importantly, the public sector, whose unions are helping to fund Newsom’s redistricting drive. It’s almost impossible to imagine any of the Republican hopefuls for governor – former David Cameron advisor Steve Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco – winning, and it’s possible that neither will even make it to the run-off election. A Republican has not won a state-wide race in California in almost two decades... But the Democrats’ stranglehold over California is both unjustified and damaging. Newsom can crow about the state’s giant economy – largely due to the presence of a handful of the world’s seven companies with trillion dollar valuations, and the highest number of billionaires in the US. But the average Californian has not benefited much from his regime, as the Golden State suffers among the nation’s highest proportion of the population living in poverty, tepid job growth and the US’s highest rates of unemployment, particularly elevated for teenagers and Generation Z. For those older than 30, buying a home – the traditional route to the middle class – has become a nightmare. Regulations aimed at stopping suburban development have helped push the median cost of a home to nearly 2.5 times higher than in the rest of country. Not surprisingly California has the second lowest homeownership rate in the nation, at 56 per cent (New York’s is lowest at 54 per cent). High prices have been a boon to upper-middle professionals, increasingly the Democratic Party’s base, but ownership rates for those under-35 are half the national average. This is precisely the group that is deserting the West Coast for “cost of living” reasons. Even worse, the Newsom economy has been a disaster for workers. California is one of the worst states for creating jobs that pay above average. In the year to January 2025, the only net new jobs created in California were in areas substantially subsidised by government (like healthcare) and in government itself as well as some in the low wage service sector. Meanwhile, companies in key high wage sectors – technology, aerospace and defence – are heading increasingly to other states, notably to the Carolinas and Texas. Many will be tempted to follow the likes of Elon Musk, who is busily working to turn the Lone Star State into the epicentre of America’s 21st century space economy. Although they have little choice in the matter in an essentially one party state, most Californians, according to a UC Berkeley poll last year, think it is headed in the wrong direction. Only around 44 per cent of voters approve of Newsom; by two to one, voters believe he is more concerned with his political ambitions than delivering decent governance, a charge made recently by San Jose’s Democratic mayor, Matt Mahan. Even Californians no longer see their state as a model for the country. In a 2024 survey conducted for the Los Angeles Times, only 15 per cent of respondents felt that California is a model other states should copy; 39 per cent said the state was not a model and should not be emulated. Barely one in three state residents – and only one in four younger voters – now thinks the American dream is achievable. This is a far cry from the California that produced Nixon, Reagan and Jerry Brown. Its failures, which should make Newsom vulnerable, will be hidden as much as possible by a compliant media, and largely ignored in the gubernatorial campaign. But Americans, however distressed over Maga excesses, may still have second thoughts about adopting a Golden State political agenda that promises, on the national level, something potentially equally or even more catastrophic."
Ryan McEntush on X - "so my friend david got home around 2am last night, the porch door’s open and his computer’s gone. he checks find my — it’s pinging somewhere around market street. so he calls sfpd, tells them he literally knows where it is. they say “we’ll send someone to market street” and won’t let him come along even though he’s got the live location. obviously they don’t find anything. instead they start poking around this creepy abandoned nursing home nextdoor his house, trying to figure out how someone got onto his porch. david keeps watching find my and sees the signal moving back toward his house, so he decides to just go for it. starts walking that direction, and about a third of a mile from home he passes this homeless guy. glances at the app — the computer’s now behind him. he turns around, asks the guy, “hey, you got a computer?” the guy says yeah. david asks, “did you take it from my house?” the guy goes, “no, found it on the street.” so david asks if he can take a look — and the dude literally shows him not just his computer, but also his roommate’s computer and a kindle. david goes, “okay, these are mine, can i have them back?” and the guy just says “sure.” so he walks all the stuff back to the cops, who are still screwing around in the abandoned nursing home like it’s resident evil. they’re amazed and tell him, “we should give you a badge.” a true san francisco story."
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Newsom is behaving as badly as Trump - "Gavin Newsom is behaving just as badly as Donald Trump, Arnold Schwarzenegger has suggested. The Terminator star, who was the last Republican governor of California, hit out at Mr Newsom’s plans to redraw congressional districts to boost the Democrats in next year’s mid-term elections. Mr Newsom, the current California governor, claims his hand was forced by Mr Trump’s push to gerrymander seats in states such as Texas to maintain Republican control of the House of Representatives... “It doesn’t make any sense to me that because we have to fight Trump [we] become Trump,” the film star told The Wall Street Journal... Mr Newsom has claimed his plans will “defend our democracy” after Mr Trump urged Republicans to secure additional seats via redistricting. His call has been taken up by states such as Texas and Missouri... Despite California’s legacy of non-partisan districting, the well-funded “Yes to 50” campaign has cut through by capitalising on opposition to Mr Trump in the state, where the president is broadly unpopular."
Quite apart from ignoring how Democrats have been gerrymandering all along, left wing logic: left wing parties listening to the electorate and cracking down on illegal migration means becoming "fascist", so they shouldn't do that. But aping what "fascist" Trump does to perpetuate left wing political power is good and "defending democracy"
CMV: Gavin Newsome is a poor choice for a presidential candidate. : r/changemyview - "he's an opportunist, narc, corporate shill, he just has absolutely no appeal in the states that Democrats need to win. Democrats online have a tendency to believe that the nation sees everything as they do or that the nation all demands a fighter. In reality, the swing states which determine our elections are largely looking for someone that will calm things down, that will compromise and that will prioritize the working class to bring back jobs and lower the cost of living. Gavin is not this. He is the image of California, the state with the highest costs in the nation and the highest poverty rate, unemployment rate, homelessness, etc. He has long been ridiculed nationwide and has a reputation as a fake politician. The common motto about California -if you look around online outside of reddit - is "don't California my state". Even if Gavin weren't problematic or were not to blame for any of California's recent failures (such as net 1.5million Californians leaving in 2020-2024 and net 934k foreign immigrants moving in)...the CA image in the midwest and in the south is a deal-breaker. Democrats just won't listen. A lot of them are certain that they lost in 2024 because they did not have a white man as the candidate (and this was absolutely not the case). So they're eager to throw him in as the nominee. As a Californian with my state in decline in virtually every regard (GDP is doing fine because of big tech), there is at least the guarantee that he will not be able to turn this nation back around. My experience is that critique of him on reddit sometimes leads to the removal of the comment or even a ban in the subreddit. So be mindful. There was a lot more critique about Gavin prior to all of his putting on an act in front of the cameras. Attitudes toward him just 6 months ago on reddit before what seems like astroturfing began: https://www.reddit.com/r/California/comments/1kq3h4h/california_gov_gavin_newsom_tries_to_rebrand/"
California tied with Louisiana for highest U.S. poverty rate, new report says - Los Angeles Times - "A new report released this week by the California Budget and Policy Center, a Sacramento-based think tank, found that 7 million California residents, or 17.7% of the population, lived in poverty last year."
Time to mock red states again
John LeFevre on X - "Gavin debuts his hip hop persona on an NBA podcast: "It was about payin' the bills, man." "Hustlin." "I raised myself." "Wonder bread and Mac 'n cheese. That's how I grew up, bro." (His dad was the attorney for the billionaire Getty family.)"
Adam Carolla on X - "His dad worked for Getty oil"
Sherry on X - "At age 25 he co-founded a winery in SF with investors including FAMILY FRIEND Gordon Getty, son of oil magnate J. Paul Getty. Made him a multi-millionaire by age 32. Willie Brown was an early political mentor. Those are some tough streets to conquer, Gav."
Katie Porter, leading candidate for California governor, melts down during CBS interview when asked about reaching Trump voters 😬 - "Katie Porter, the radical Dem known for promoting abortion as an inflation buster, dismissing the murder of Laken Riley, and for being an election denier (when she's the loser), and being an accused "abusive and racist boss," apparently has no idea how to be on the receiving end of an interview... With over a dozen primary candidates having announced a bid for governor in the 2026 election (Gov. Gavin Newsom is not eligible to run again), Porter is the leading candidate according to an August 2025 poll from Emerson College. A POLITICO survey from the same month showed that 30% of former Kamala Harris voters shifted their support to Porter after Harris ruled out any run for governor."
Kevin Dalton on X - "Non US citizens are suddenly not able to renew their CDLs after the Trump administration closed loopholes that Gavin Newsom’s California was exploiting. The DOT is singling out California for what it calls "gross negligence." It says more than 25% of CDLs given to noncitizens or non-permanent residents were improperly issued."
Kevin Dalton on X - "Scott Wiener: We don’t want you here
Also Scott Wiener: I have no interest in walking the streets of San Fransisco with a journalist and get confronted with the horrific crime and suffering my progressive policies have created"
"I hope you’re sitting down, but it looks like Scott Wiener has a rich history of avoiding talking about the repercussions of his abysmal policies."
Someone with a foreign accent said it was like a third world country and didn't know why the police didn't do anything
Kane 謝凱堯 on X - "San Francisco progressive supervisors are pushing a “reparations” bill to give $5M cash to every black resident. They want it to be administered by the NGO that was recently caught committing massive fraud."
Benny Johnson on X - "BREAKING: San Francisco quietly rolls out $5 million-per-person reparations for Black residents while in a $1 billion deficit."
Elon Musk on X - "California didn’t even have slaves! Why is it right for someone who escaped tyranny in other countries and happens to live in SF to pay “reparations” for something they had nothing to do with? This is deeply morally wrong."
Wall Street Apes on X - "California Democrats just passed a new rule giving illegals PRIORITY over American citizens for tuition assistance Yes, this is real California Rep Carl DeMaio “California Democrat politicians have now enacted a new rule that treats citizens worse than illegal immigrants and gives discounts for tuition to illegal immigrants over citizens here in the United States.” “I think this is completely unfair and offensive. I was contacted last week by a student wishing to enroll in a California university and they were told that they have to pay tens of thousands of dollars more in tuition than if they were an illegal immigrant. Because illegal immigrants have been given in-state tuition discounts even though they're not eligible for them. Whereas citizens from other states are charged substantially higher rates. He explained his father fought for freedom. He is a veteran and yet his son cannot get the same treatment as an illegal immigrant. He's quipped that maybe he should try to go to Mexico and then enter California illegally. Would that get him a discount? Sadly, no.“ A new change “rule” was made to the California Dream Act Application (CADAA) pushed by Democratic lawmakers reducing barriers for illegals to get the aid Democrats in late 2025 specifically granting “priority” tuition assistance to undocumented immigrants over citizens"
emilysavesamerica on X - "Nothing will push you to the right faster than working your entire life to finally make money in California and being forced to hand over half of it while you walk through streets filled with homeless addicts, criminals, and illegal migrants the state prioritizes over you. You watch your hard earned money disappear into people who hate you, make your life unsafe, and destroy your community while politicians get richer every single day. I was liberal my entire life. Living like this will turn any normal person into the furthest right version of themselves."
Wall Street Apes on X - "California journalist calls out the Los Angeles City Council
“So far we have spent $450 million to permanently house 1,144 people — That's an absolute failure” He says he knows the money is being laundered to NGOs politically connected to Karen Bass and City Council members “That money is going somewhere. It's not like that money is falling into the abyss. That money ends up being somebody's profit. The non-profit industrial complex who's making a ton of money off of it. And most of those people are politically connected to Hugo and Nithya and Karen Bass, of course, and actually all of you people.” He talks about how there are entire areas where not a single street light works He talks about how taxpayers money is being spent to cover up sexual assaults"
Clearly, the problem is that not enough money has been spent, and it's all Trump and the GOP's fault
Steve McGuire on X - "California State University Professor Melina Abdullah invited her students during class to sign a petition urging Gavin Newsom to veto a bill aimed at preventing antisemitism in K-12 schools. The university is investigating. According to the faculty handbook, “the law…prohibits the use of state time and resources (including state materials, equipment, facilities, and services) in supporting or opposing any political candidate or issue being considered by the electorate of the state or any political subdivision of the state.”"
Mike Solana on X - "san francisco is trying to give black people five million dollars each for being black, with additional annual income payments so nobody living in the city, who is black, ever has to work again (for 250 years). this is considered uncontroversial on the city's "moderate" board."
Chamath Palihapitiya on X - "Taxes in California can make an Uber ride across LA more expensive than an airplane ticket from LA to Miami…"
"Mandatory insurance costs make up about 45% of the average Uber fare in Los Angeles County, versus 10% or less in most places in the country. Taking an Uber across L.A. can cost more than a flight to Miami."
Thread by @mnolangray on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Reading bizarre NPIC position letters on common sense California legislation is kind of my full-time job, but I don't think I've ever seen one this strange. Enforcing DUI law is a form of "racialized wealth extraction"...?
“Drunk and drugged driving is now so common in car-centric California that drivers routinely rack up four, five, six DUIs. One woman in Fresno just got her 16th.”
"...drivers face even more burdensome costs of DUI class fees, high cost-insurance premiums..." What is the point of insurance if not to force people to internalize the risks? California already mandates that auto insurers provide subsidized insurance for repeat DUI offenders!...
As with disparate impact arguments against safety cameras and traffic enforcement generally, making a disparate impact argument against DUI enforcement is absurd—what about the Black and Hispanic pedestrians and bicyclists disproportionally killed by drunk drivers?"
David Watkins on X - "Today I learned that California requires insurers (and, by implication, responsible drivers) to subsidize criminally dangerous ones. Evidently the goal if this utterly deranged rule is to help ensure these deadly drivers are able to keep driving."
💥Susan Dyer Reynolds🗞️ on X - "The social worker stabbed by a violent lunatic at SF General Hospital has died. Meanwhile the court is requesting a pretrial diversion hearing for the killer. ⬇️"
Eddie Kim on X - "SF's loudest conservatives have been, for years, demonizing civil rights and alternatives to a carceral system that fails public safety needs It might be the heart of ol' Commiefornia, but SF's law-and-order obsessives mirror the same rhetoric as MAGA"
Mike Solana on X - "jailing murderers is not a “conservative” position it’s just the actual bottom rung of maintaining human civilization"
Clearly, they need to send in more social workers
Arye Lipman on X - "Highway 1 in Big Sur has been closed for 838 days. In that time China has built 3500 miles of high speed rail, and California hasn't been able to fix a quarter mile of highway."
Thread by @RamboVanHalen on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Here's another piece of low-hanging fruit. This encapsulates EVERYTHING that's wrong with Gavin Newsom's California. But who's telling the story? In case you don't know, California Highway 1 near Big Sur was closed by a landslide in 2023. Due to safetyism, environmental groups, and government incompetence/corruption the road remains closed and the possible opening dates keep shifting. There's really no plan to fix/open the road and the tourist oriented economy along the coast is dying. The road was built in the early 1920s. Over the years there have been MANY landslides. The road was always fixed and reopened. But somehow, 100 years later in Gavin Newsom's California, this is impossible. It's as if we've lost the ability to repair roads. Just like it's impossible to rebuild Paradise or rebuild Pacific Palisades after wild fires. Just like it's impossible to fix the homeless problem. Just like it's impossible to build high speed rail. Just like it's impossible to do ANYTHING of value in California. Again, this story encapsulates EVERYTHING that's wrong with Gavin Newsom and the Democratic Party. And nobody is telling this story. A talented filmmaker could make a nice documentary short for around $50-$100k. It seems like a decent investment, but nobody in big media wants to greenlight projects that make Gavin look bad. But the people who do have an interest in making Gavin look bad won't put their money where their mouth is. Because they have no vision. And they won't fund the people who do.
If Donald Trump was even tangentially responsible for the highway closure--or the fires--or the homeless--or anything else, the Obamas would be throwing MILLIONS at it. Because they UNDERSTAND things about media and power that conservatives don't. It’s not about the Dems/Libs have a monopoly on media. Media can be bought. Creators can be bought. And nobody is stopping the RW from buying it. What the Libs have is a monopoly on VISION. Because the RW can’t can’t see it. They can’t even comprehend the opportunities."
