6 responses to “Newsom: At least pay for your own lawyers”

1. Phinancier

   June 17, 2026

   A little background never hurts. I know someone who “got the call”. Check it out.

   California’s powers-that-be have steered more than a half-billion dollars of other people’s money to their favorite charities and causes since 2011 — and way more than half of that haul came at the behest of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

   That includes millions donated to nonprofits tied to Newsom’s wife, which may have something to do with the federal investigation into Newsom and “first partner” Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

   These donations often come from businesses and people hoping to influence elected leaders, steer public policy, demonstrate their stellar citizenship to the masses, or perhaps a bit of all three. While state law sets caps on gifts and campaign contributions to politicians, there’s no limit on these so-called “behested payments” to politicians’ pet projects.

   Critics say it’s another way for the well-heeled to curry official favor, while lawmakers say they’re simply using the power of their bully pulpits to make the world a better place. Consider:

   • Total charitable contributions made at the request of all California lawmakers totaled $555.9 million over the past 15 years, according to data from the Fair Political Practices Commission.

   • Total charitable contributions made at Newsom’s request totaled $347.2 million. That’s more than 62% of all behests over the time period.

   • About $4.3 million of the Newsom behests went to his wife’s California Partners Project, just one of several nonprofits she’s involved with.

2. Joe

   June 17, 2026

   This is just too funny not to post. If you were back East back in the day, you knew who Crazy Eddie was. He was on the radio and TV constantly selling electronics and car stereos and was eventually convicted of securities fraud and money laundering. Now he’s “reformed” and posts on X about all sorts of potential criminal actions as a do-gooder. He’s giving our guv advice on X:

   “Memo to Gavin Newsom: Never involve your wife in the commission of a crime. It ended up biting Crazy Eddie Antar in the ass.”

   “Crazy Eddie Memoirs: When the Feds started investigating us, I had two immediate priorities: destroying whatever evidence remained and coordinating stories among co-conspirators.

   “Fishing expedition” was never our defense. We knew exactly what they were fishing for”.
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   Now THAT is funny, Eddie

3. HMB

   June 18, 2026

   “Our prices are INSANE!!!” Yeah, when i lived in Jersey, the two ads that were in constant rotation on the TV and radio were Crazy Eddie and Patti LuPone singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” for Evita! on Broadway. Their voices are forever seared in my memory.

4. Joe

   June 18, 2026

   https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/newsom-investigation-letter-22308676.php

   If it weren’t so sad it might be funny watching “journalist” Sophia Bollag meticulously avoiding any reporting on the behested payments, the NGO salaries, the donor lists, the production company, etc etc. She doesn’t even need to do the work because it’s already been done by three real journalists elsewhere.

5. Joe

   June 27, 2026

   I’m sure glad the governor has time for stuff like this:

   Gov. Gavin Newsom releases first-in-the-nation tool to track AI-related job losses

   High-cost rail is mind numbingly over budget and behind schedule, our roads are a mess, kids get to the UC’s and can’t do high-school math. But we got time to build an app to track something that is vaguely defined and none of the government’s business to begin with. In fact, what I would like to see is an app to track how many state employees have been made redundant by AI thus saving the taxpayers some of the $31 billion deficit.

6. Joe

   June 27, 2026

   And here is a sliver of “credit where credit is due”:

   Gov. Gavin Newsom is barreling ahead with forcing California state workers back to the office, flatly rejecting calls to soften a return-to-work mandate that unions warn could trigger a “mass exodus” of employees.

   Starting July 1, roughly 100,000 state workers will be required to report to the office or the field four days a week, leaving just one day for telework under Newsom’s long-delayed executive order.

   Despite mounting backlash from organized labor and state employees, the governor made it clear there will be no retreat. The showdown is already escalating with SEIU Local 1000, the state’s largest employee union, which has warned the mandate could spark a wave of departures if enforced.
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   Promise?