Vote now for the Southern California News Group Boys Athlete of the Week, Oct. 25

• October 25, 2023

Editor’s note: SCNG prohibits the use of bots and any other artificial methods of voting. Suspicious activity could lead to the disqualification of candidates.

Welcome to the Southern California News Group’s Boys Athlete of the Week poll.

Throughout the high school sports year, SCNG will provide a list of candidates — selected by our 11 newspapers in Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County — who stood out over the previous week and allow you, the reader, to vote for the overall winner.

This week, we consider performances from Oct. 16-22.

The poll closes at 11 p.m. Thursday.

Vote as many times as you’d like until then without using bots or any other artificial methods of voting.

The weekly winner will be announced each Friday morning online.

GIRLS ATHLETE OF THE WEEK POLL

Here are this week’s nominees (the poll is below the list of candidates):

Orange County boys athlete of the week: Trent Mosley, Santa Margarita

Press-Telegram Boys Athlete of the Week: Jarret Nielsen, Jordan

Daily Breeze Boys Athlete of the Week: Cadence Turner, Redondo

Daily News boys athlete of the Week: Jackson Askins, Valencia

San Gabriel Valley Boys Athlete of the Week: Richie Munoz, Bishop Amat

Inland boys athlete of the week: Ronald Weathers, Arroyo Valley

About the poll: The Southern California News Group includes the Orange County Register, L.A. Daily News, Press-Enterprise, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Whittier Daily News, Pasadena-Star News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, The Daily Breeze, San Bernardino Sun, Daily Bulletin and Redlands Daily Facts.

LAST WEEK’S WINNERS

Southern California News Group Boys Athlete of the Week: Ardwon Morris, Orange

Southern California News Group Girls Athlete of the Week: Helena Foord, South Pasadena

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​ Orange County Register 

Vote now for the Southern California News Group Girls Athlete of the Week, Oct. 25

• October 25, 2023

Editor’s note: SCNG prohibits the use of bots and any other artificial methods of voting. Suspicious activity could lead to the disqualification of candidates.

Welcome to the Southern California News Group’s Girls Athlete of the Week poll.

Throughout the high school sports year, SCNG will provide a list of candidates — selected by our 11 newspapers in Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County — who stood out over the previous week and allow you, the reader, to vote for the overall winner.

This week, we consider performances from Oct. 16-22.

The poll closes at 11 p.m. Thursday.

Vote as many times as you’d like until then without using bots or any other artificial methods of voting.

The weekly winner will be announced each Friday morning online.

BOYS ATHLETE OF THE WEEK POLL

Here are this week’s nominees (the poll is below the list of candidates):

Orange County girls athlete of the week: Yurang Li, Sunny Hills

Press-Telegram Girls Athlete of the Week: Simrin Adams, Wilson

Daily Breeze Girls Athlete of the Week: Lyla Fedio, Redondo

Daily News girls athlete of the Week: Manaia Ogbechie, Oaks Christian

San Gabriel Valley Girls Athlete of the Week: Taylor Yu, Temple City

Inland girls athlete of the week: Emilyn Czaplicki, King

About the poll: The Southern California News Group includes the Orange County Register, L.A. Daily News, Press-Enterprise, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Whittier Daily News, Pasadena-Star News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, The Daily Breeze, San Bernardino Sun, Daily Bulletin and Redlands Daily Facts.

LAST WEEK’S WINNERS

Southern California News Group Girls Athlete of the Week: Helena Foord, South Pasadena

Southern California News Group Boys Athlete of the Week: Ardwon Morris, Orange

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​ Orange County Register 

CSUF professor’s LA art exhibition is a ‘love letter to jotería communities’

• October 25, 2023

By Greg Hardesty, contributing writer

Since he was a child, Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. has been writing.

It was a creative outlet throughout a challenging upbringing.

Eddy and his two sisters, Gaby and Patty, all children of immigrant parents, grew up on welfare and in subsidized housing.

Their Cuban father was mentally disabled, and their Mexican mother stayed home to take care of him when she wasn’t cleaning houses or hotel rooms.

But challenges didn’t stifle the creative juices in Alverez, who in addition to writing also considered acting before he discovered his sweet spot in academia.

Now, the associate professor in CSUF’s Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies is celebrating a first.

Based on his research into queer Latinx communities in Los Angeles (Eddy grew up in the San Fernando Valley), his exhibition continues its run (Aug. 24 through Jan. 28, 2024) at the Museum of Social Justice in downtown Los Angeles.

“Finding Sequins in the Rubble: Archives of Jotería Memories in Los Angeles” is the museum’s first LGBTQ-focused exhibition. It also marks Alvarez’s first time curating a public history project. And he had some help from students in two of his classes.

“It’s been very scary because I have so much love for my communities, and it’s been lots of work,” says Alvarez, a member of the queer Latinx community of L.A., “but it’s also been so much fun and a very memorable experience.”

Reclaimed empowerment

Write your words

to leave a legacy, a history, a herstory, a queerstory,

so that your words may create paths to follow,

Recipes for self-love, self-healing, survival.

The above is from Alvarez’s poem, “Write Your Words,” and he views the exhibition as a form of poetry.

“It’s a love letter to jotería communities in L.A. and everywhere,” says Alvarez, referring to the word derived from the derogatory terms Joto and Jota that historically have been used to describe people of Mexican descent who do not fit heteronormative standards.

Jotería now is a reclaimed term of empowerment for queer Latinx and indigenous people.

Alvarez’s exhibition was curated from images, artifacts and oral histories, and is designed to focus on the love, joy, activism and family that queer Latinx in Los Angeles have built.

Alvarez first pitched the idea to a former professor at Cal State University Northridge, where Alvarez, a first-generation college student and former elementary school teacher, earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish (he earned master’s and doctorate degrees in Chicana and Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara).

It took a lot of support from former and current colleagues as well as students at CSUF, which Alvarez joined after teaching stints in New York and Portland, to make the exhibition a reality.

Alvarez even got his family involved. A niece helped him pick up artifacts across Los Angeles

Humbling and rewarding

For the exhibition, some of Alvarez’s Titan students transcribed, conducted oral histories, did background research, and put together timelines.

Esmeralda Llerenas, a first-year graduate student pursuing a master’s in counseling with an emphasis in the Latinx community, interviewed a good friend for the exhibit.

“Being able to share his story, and being given the trust to do so, was so humbling and rewarding,” she says.

Llerenas says Alvarez was a source of validation and comfort for her.

“I struggled with my imposter syndrome on this project,” she says. “But he made sure to always be available and supportive, while also providing feedback. I trusted him and his expertise to guide me in the right direction.”

Amalia Contreras, a recent graduate with a major in history and a double minor in Chicano studies with plans to become an educator or a journalist, collected data on oral history interviews that Alvarez conducted.

She organized data from those oral histories using a spreadsheet that pinpointed the places that document important locations of where folks realized their sexuality and had first met their first boyfriend or girlfriend.

“To me,” Contreras says, “Professor Alvarez is the most impactful educator and activist on campus. He has truly been a leader in every sense of the word. He is the reason why I minored in Chicano studies. And his presence in higher education has contributed to so much healing in the Latinx/Chicanx community here at CSUF.”

‘It feels like home’

Alvarez is working on a book, “Finding Sequins in the Rubble: Memory, Space and Aesthetics in Queer Latinx Los Angeles,” an oral history and archival project that maps physical and ephemeral sites of memory and quotidian moments of pleasure and resistance for queer and trans Chicanx and Latinx communities in Los Angeles.

He also is working on a collection of essays and poems about growing up queer.

He’s thrilled to be at CSUF.

“It feels like home,” Alvarez says. “Many of my students have stories like mine, and they are so committed to their learning. Many of them juggle multiple jobs and families and go to school. And I’m lucky to have amazing and supportive colleagues.”

Visit museumofsocialjustice.org to learn more about Alvarez’s exhibit.

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​ Orange County Register 

Trump rages as former acolytes turn against him under legal heat

• October 25, 2023

Donald Trump’s wealth, power and fame acted like a magnet for new associates keen to enter his orbit. But now, key figures who sought a share of his reflected glory are turning against him to save themselves.

The ex-president absorbed a trio of blows Tuesday that worsened his legal peril and underscored how the 2024 election – in which he is the front-runner for the GOP nomination – will play out in the courts rather than traditional voting battlegrounds.

In the most significant development, ABC News reported that Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had met federal prosecutors multiple times and had categorically undermined the ex-president’s narrative about a stolen election. Meadows was the gatekeeper to the Oval Office in the critical days when Trump was allegedly plotting to steal the 2020 election after voters rejected his bid for a second term. CNN has reached out to Meadows’ attorney for comment.

In another damaging twist, former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, who blanketed television networks after President Joe Biden’s victory to falsely claim he was elected because of fraud, reached a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors. Ellis on Tuesday tearfully confessed to the felony of aiding and abetting false statements that she and other lawyers told Peach State lawmakers. She was the third former Trump acolyte to agree to testify against the ex-president and others this week. The election subversion prosecution brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now following the classic playbook of a racketeering case wherein smaller fish are peeled away for reduced sentences to secure their testimony against the alleged kingpin.

“If I knew then what I knew now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this experience with deep remorse,” Ellis said.

Ellis was a comparatively junior figure in Trump’s schemes to overthrow the election, although there is reason to believe she was in critical meetings of interest to prosecutors. Her guilty plea also looks like terrible news for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also served as a Trump lawyer after the election and with whom Ellis worked closely.

Her repudiation of her own behavior marks an ominous omen for Trump because it shows that while falsehoods about election fraud are still a potent political force in the GOP and conservative media, it’s the truth that matters in court. Under the legal system, the former president could face a level of accountability that the US political system, which is still buckling under his influence, can’t match.

One of Trump’s former associates was feeling no remorse when he arrived in court in New York on Tuesday seeking to undermine another Trump legal defense. The former president’s longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, came face to face with his ex-boss for the first time in five years when he took the stand in a civil trial in which prosecutors are seeking to end Trump’s ability to do business in the state. Cohen has already gone to jail for tax fraud, making false statements to Congress and campaign finance violations – some of which were linked to his work for Trump before he launched his political career. Cohen once vowed to take a bullet for his former boss but has left no doubt that he’s been itching to testify against him for many months. While his own conviction raises credibility issues about his testimony, Cohen implicated Trump on Tuesday, saying his former boss directed him to inflate his net worth on financial statements.

“Heck of a reunion,” Cohen told reporters after testifying under Trump’s gaze.

Trump feels the growing legal heat

Each of Tuesday’s legal dramas threatened to undermine Trump’s position in separate cases, to which he has pleaded not guilty, and emphasized how the Republican front-runner’s bid to recapture the White House will be shadowed by his criminal liability.

And for someone who has the exaggerated sense of loyalty harbored by Trump – albeit one that mostly goes one way – the spectacle of three former associates turning against him will be especially irksome.

While the crush of legal cases bearing down on him hasn’t diminished his dominance in the GOP presidential race, there are increasing signs that the courtroom pressure is beginning to grate on a former president who, in a lifetime of business, personal and political scrapes, has made an art form of dodging accountability.

In a rage-filled stream of consciousness on his Truth Social network on Tuesday night, Trump lashed out at the ABC report about Meadows.

“I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!),” the former president wrote.

“Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

This came only a day after Trump absurdly compared himself to Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison – much of it in a tiny cell on Robben Island – enduring forced labor in a quarry for opposing the racist apartheid system in South Africa. After his release, the Nobel Peace Prize winner remade his divided nation as president and became a symbol of unity, humility, racial healing and forgiveness – qualities rarely shown by Trump.

“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I’m doing it for a reason,” the ex-president told supporters in New Hampshire.

Trump’s persecution complex is revealing, however. The former president is portraying himself as a bulwark against a government that he claims is weaponized against him and his supporters. The idea that he is a political martyr who is being unfairly targeted by the Biden administration – despite 91 charges across his four criminal indictments – may be his only credible campaign tactic. After all, he may be a convicted felon by Election Day in less than 13 months. While that prospect doesn’t seem to faze Republican primary voters, it may be a serious vulnerability among a broader electorate.

The significance of the Meadows developments

Legal watchers in Washington have speculated for months about the activity of Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who became the last chief of staff of Trump’s turbulent White House term.

During his testimony before a federal grand jury, Meadows was also asked about efforts to overturn the election as well as Trump’s handling of classified documents, CNN previously reported.

But if, as ABC News has reported, he has been granted immunity by special counsel Jack Smith and met federal prosecutors multiple times, that qualifies for the over-used term of “bombshell.”

Meadows is also a key figure in the Fulton County, Georgia, probe, where he made a failed effort to have his case elevated to federal court after unsuccessfully arguing his actions at the behest of Trump’s election thwarting effort fell under his official duties.

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Meadows, who met Smith’s team at least three times this year, told investigators he did not believe the election was stolen and that Trump was being “dishonest” in claiming victory shortly after polls closed in 2020, according to ABC.

The agreement is the first publicly known in the special counsel’s investigation into the events around January 6, 2021. The exact terms of Meadows’ deal with prosecutors are not clear, but often such agreements allow a person with valuable information about an investigation immunity from prosecution in exchange for fully cooperating.

The reported details of Meadows’ testimony could be hugely damaging for Trump because a fundamental plank of the ex-president’s defense relies on the notion that he sincerely believed that the election was stolen and that his actions were not therefore criminal because they were an exercise of his right to free speech.

It has long been the case that while those around Trump in business and politics often find themselves slipping deep into legal trouble, he skips free. The apparent decisions of Meadows, Ellis and Cohen – together with the mass of legal threats now facing the former president – suggest that charmed life is about to meet its biggest challenge yet.

​ Orange County Register 

Customer trapped in vault for 10 hours in Manhattan Diamond District

• October 25, 2023

Thomas Tracy | New York Daily News

A customer was trapped in a vault for nearly 10 hours in Manhattan’s Diamond District before being freed Wednesday morning, FDNY officials said.

The 23-year-old victim was inside the vault at DJA Securities on Fifth Ave. near E. 47th St. about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday when the door closed and locked, leaving him trapped inside.

The vault door was on a timing mechanism and wouldn’t open until early Wednesday, FDNY Battalion Chief John Sarrocco told reporters.

“This vault has very large concrete walls that have steel reinforcing bars and also steel plating,” Sarrocco said. “The process was started to breach the wall, which has about 30 inches of concrete in it.”

Both the FDNY and the NYPD were in communication with the customer inside the vault and able to watch him on a security camera.

After several hours, the FDNY managed to cut through the concrete to the steel plating, when they had to reassess the situation.

In order to cut through the plating, the FDNY “would have to use torches that would affect the environment of the person in the vault,” Sarrocco explained. “After about 10 hours, we decided to wait and see if the door would open automatically.”

At about 6:15 a.m. Wednesday, the lock disengaged on its own and the man was freed, Sarrocco said.

In order to cut through the plating, the FDNY “would have to use torches that would affect the environment of the person in the vault,” Sarrocco explained. “After about 10 hours, we decided to wait and see if the door would open automatically.”

At about 6:15 a.m. Wednesday, the lock disengaged on its own and the man was freed, Sarrocco said.

​ Orange County Register 

Mike Johnson is the latest GOP nominee for House speaker as Republicans move to yet another vote

• October 25, 2023

By LISA MASCARO, STEPHEN GROVES, FARNOUSH AMIRI and KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON — Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson as their latest nominee for House speaker desperate to unite their fractious majority and end the chaos, just hours after an earlier pick abruptly withdrew in the face of opposition from Donald Trump.

Johnson of Louisiana, a lower-ranked member of the House GOP leadership team, becomes the fourth Republican nominee in what has become an almost absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as GOP factions jockey for power.

When the House convenes at noon Wednesday ahead of a floor vote, Johnson, who won the majority behind closed doors, will need almost all Republicans in the public roll call to win the gavel.

“Mike! Mike! Mike!” lawmakers chanted at a press conference late Tuesday night, surrounding Johnson and posing for selfies in a show of support.

Three weeks on, the Republicans have been frittering away their majority status — a maddening embarrassment to some, democracy in action to others, but not at all how the House is expected to function.

Refusing to unify, far-right members won’t accept a more traditional speaker and moderate conservatives don’t want a hardliner. While Johnson had no opponents during the private roll call, some two dozen Republicans did not vote, more than enough to sink his nomination.

Anxious and exhausted, Republican lawmakers are desperately trying to move on. “Pretty sad commentary on governance right now,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark. “Maybe on the fourth or fifth or sixth or 10th try, we’ll get this thing right.”

After he withdrew Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Tom Emmer briskly left the building where he had been meeting privately with Republicans. He said later at the Capitol that Trump’s opposition did not affect his decision to bow out.

“I made my decision based on my relationship with the conference,” he said, referring to the GOP majority. Emmer said he would support whomever emerges as the new nominee. “We’ll get it done.”

Trump, speaking as he left the courtroom in New York where he faces business fraud charges, said his “un-endorsement” must have had an impact on Emmer’s bid.

“He wasn’t MAGA,” said Trump, the party’s front-runner for the 2024 presidential election, referring to his Make America Great Again campaign slogan.

House Republicans returned behind closed doors, where they spend much of their time, desperately searching for a leader who can unite the factions, reopen the House and get the U.S. Congress working again.

Attention quickly turned to Johnson, 51, who was the second highest vote-getter on Tuesday morning’s internal ballots.

A lawyer specializing in constitutional issues, Johnson had rallied Republicans around Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

Elevating Johnson to speaker would giving Louisianans two high-ranking GOP leaders, putting him above Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was rejected by hardliners in his own bid as speaker.

But hardliners swiftly resisted Johnson’s bid and a new list of candidates emerged. Among them was Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, a Trump ally who ran third on the morning ballot, and a few others.

In the end, Johnson won 128 votes on the evening ballot, more than any other candidate. McCarthy, who was not on the ballot, won a surprising 43 votes.

“Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system,” Johnson said afterward, Scalise standing behind him. “We’re going to restore your trust in what we do here.”

One idea circulating, first reported by NBC News, was to reinstall McCarthy as speaker with hardline Rep. Jim Jordan in a new leadership role.

It was being pitched as a way to unite the conference, lawmakers said, but many said it would not fly.

“I think sometimes it’s good to have fresh ideas and fresh people,” said Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind.

While Emmer won a simple majority in a morning roll call behind closed doors — 117 votes — he lost more than two dozen Republicans, leaving him far short of what will be needed during a House floor tally ahead.

With Republicans controlling the House 221-212 over Democrats, any GOP nominee can afford just a few detractors to win the gavel.

Trump allies, including the influential hard-right instigator Steve Bannon, have been critical of Emmer. Some point to his support of a same-sex marriage initiative and perceived criticisms of the former president. Among the far-right groups pressuring lawmakers over the speaker’s vote, some quickly attacked Emmer.

Having rejected the top replacements, Scalise and the Trump-backed Jordan, there is no longer any obvious choice for the job.

“We’re in the same cul-de-sac,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.

Yet Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., one of the hardliners, said, “This is what democracy looks like.”

Republicans have been flailing all month, unable to conduct routine business as they fight amongst themselves with daunting challenges ahead.

The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.

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Many hardliners have been resisting a leader who voted for the budget deal that McCarthy struck with Biden earlier this year, which set federal spending levels that far-right Republicans don’t agree with and now want to undo. They are pursuing steeper cuts to federal programs and services with next month’s funding deadline.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she wanted assurances the candidates would pursue impeachment inquiries into Biden and other top Cabinet officials.

During the turmoil, the House is now led by a nominal interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the bow tie-wearing chairman of the Financial Services Committee. His main job is to elect a more permanent speaker.

Some Republicans — and Democrats — would like to simply give McHenry more power to get on with the routine business of governing. But McHenry, the first person to be in the position that was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as an emergency measure, has declined to back those overtures.

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Judge eviscerates new heavy-handed California gun laws

• October 25, 2023

For the second time this year, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez struck down heavy-handed California laws regulating the Second Amendment’s right “to keep and bear arms.” In September, he threw out a law limiting magazines to 10 rounds. Last week he dumped a California law banning so-called “assault weapons,” which really are just mean-looking rifles that scare politicians who don’t know anything about guns.

He ruled, “The American tradition is rich and deep in protecting a citizen’s enduring right to keep and bear common arms like rifles, shotguns, and pistols. However, among the American tradition of firearm ownership, there is nothing like California’s prohibition on rifles, shotguns, and handguns based on their looks or attributes.”

As with the earlier decisions, the new one is being appealed by Attorney General Rob Bonta, who said, “Weapons of war have no place on California’s streets. This has been state law in California for decades, and we will continue to fight for our authority to keep our citizens safe from firearms that cause mass casualties.” Gov. Gavin Newsom seconded that: “Californians’ elected representatives decided almost 35 years ago that weapons of war have no place in our communities.”

But as Sam Parades, executive director of Gun Owners of California, told us, Benitez “meticulously and methodically broke down and destroyed” Bonta’s arguments. “We believe that the California Assault Weapons Control Act will go into the dustbin of history.”

Indeed, Benitez thoroughly eviscerated the hollow arguments of Bonta and Newsom.

“Other than their looks,” he wrote, “these prohibited rifles are virtually the same as other lawfully possessed rifles. They have the same minimum overall length, they use the same triggers, they have the same barrels, and they can fire the same ammunition, from the same magazines, at the same rate of fire, and at the same velocities, as other rifles.”

Related: Will Gov. Newsom ever realize California’s gun laws must follow the Second Amendment?

The insistence of Bonta and Newsom to hyperbolically refer to the prohibited weapons as “weapons of war” mainly speaks to their ignorance of what they think they are talking about.

Benitez also directly notes that the sort of weapons Bonta and Newsom want banned are commonly used in acts of self-defense. While Bonta and Newsom are rightly horrified by mass shootings committed with such weapons, they pay no regard to the stories of those who use them lawfully and legitimately to save themselves and their families.

Citing research indicating that there are up to three million defensive uses of guns per year, Benitez presents multiple specific cases of people using AR-15’s to protect themselves against violent criminals. The ability of Californians to protect themselves should matter.

“California’s answer to the criminal misuse of a few is to disarm its many good residents,” Judge Benitez wrote. “That knee-jerk reaction is constitutionally untenable, just as it was 250 years ago. The Second Amendment stands as a shield from government imposition of that policy.”

Both of Benitez’s actions against overreaching gun laws in California could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year in its Bruen decision upheld a broad reading of the Second Amendment, among other things permitting carrying guns in public as an individual right. The current makeup of the court bodes well for the protection of the Second Amendment.

But for now, we give kudos to Judge Roger Benitez for standing up to the tyrannical impulses of Newsom and Bonta to disarm the law-abiding.

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​ Orange County Register 

California Gov. Newsom takes an odd trip to China, Israel

• October 25, 2023

For a guy who isn’t running for president, Gov. Gavin Newsom certainly is spending a lot of time doing things that presidential candidates do.

In 2022, he posted billboards in seven conservative states criticizing their anti-abortion policies.

In April, he toured several Southern states as part of his “Campaign for Democracy” to promote progressive values across the country.

This week he headed to China for a week-long trip to tour, where he is visiting electric-car companies and is promoting cultural exchanges, economic-development projects and action against climate change. He also took a detour, stopping in war-torn Israel to meet with survivors of the Hamas attacks.

He even joked about the whole “is he running or isn’t he?” vibe. “I wish I was president of the United States,” he said in response to reporters’ questions about seeking a ceasefire in Gaza.

It’s not entirely unusual for a governor to take international publicity trips. Other California governors have done so.

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, home to the nation’s largest Jewish population, recently visited Israel. And Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is attempting to boost his flagging campaign for president, partnered with a nonprofit to airlift 270 U.S. citizens from Israel to Florida. At least that effort yielded tangible humanitarian goals.

Not only conservatives ripped Newsom’s China trip because he hasn’t made mention of Chinese human-rights violations.

That’s a valid concern, but the bigger question: Why is he gallivanting around the globe as the state struggles with myriad high-profile crises?

For instance, Newsom had vowed to build tiny homes for the homeless across the state. Seven months later, the state hasn’t even awarded any contracts.

That failure is emblematic of California’s approach to homelessness and other major problems — lots of promises and spending, but little follow through.

We have no real problem with Newsom flying to international hotspots, but if he’s serious about running for president, or at least serious about being ready if President Joe Biden bows out of the 2024 race, he ought to get matters in order at home.

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​ Orange County Register