Appearing as a guest on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, far left California Democratic Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom doubled down on the wisdom of being a sitting duck at a mass shooting as he refused to acknowledge any possible advantage to being armed in the event of such an attack.
After Newsom, who has already announced he will run for governor in 2018, and host Maher went through a liberal wish list of items already passed or soon to be pushed in California, Maher surprisingly hit Newsom from the right on the issue of whether it's better to be armed in a restaurant with the ability to shoot back if a mass shooter storms in.
Gavin Newsom
By Brad Wilmouth | November 20, 2015 | 11:35 PM EST
Chris Matthews Compares Gavin Newsom to Executed Civil War-Era Abolitionist, America Is Now 'Half Slave'
By Scott Whitlock | June 26, 2013 | 6:14 PM EDT Though Chris Matthews was happy with Wednesday's Supreme Court rulings in support of gay marriage, the liberal host still used hyperbolic rhetoric to describe the state of the country and the Democratic Lieutenant Governor of California. Talking to Gavin Newsom, Matthews praised the politician, comparing him to an executed Civil War abolitionist: "In effect, you were sort of like John Brown or something back in the Civil War days- pre- Civil War days." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Brown lead an armed insurrection against the institution of slavery. He was tried and hanged. It's hard to compare Newsom's political actions in support of gay rights to that. Later, Matthews wondered about states that still ban same-sex marriage. He sneered, "What are we going to do if we have a country that ends up being divided this way, like almost like half slave and half free?"
By P.J. Gladnick | May 30, 2012 | 9:39 AM EDT
Cue up the violin strings. A sad tragedy is being played out in California. The Sacramento Bee has a story about how the Lieutenant Governor of that state, Gavin Newsom, must endure the unendurable as described in the article's headline: "Gavin Newsom breaks boredom in Sacramento with his own TV show."
Yes, even though the Current TV ratings are in the toilet and might not even be carried on cable in the future, it's show business! Unfortunately, along with the "glamor" of showbiz, poor Newsom must endure the utter boredom of his, "ugh," Lt. Governor's job which requires him to suffer the torture of spending one day per week in "dull" Sacramento.
By Noel Sheppard | May 20, 2012 | 3:14 PM EDT
Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham gave a much-needed education to ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday about the tremendous double standard involving campaign contributions.
After Ingraham pointed out that Barack Obama is never held responsible for things MoveOn.org does, ABC's This Week host foolishly said, "The president's been held accountable for Bill Maher" leading the conservative talker to smartly respond, "Did he give that money back to Bill Maher?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
By Kyle Drennen | May 14, 2012 | 1:13 PM EDT
On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, American Conservative Union president Al Cardenas squared off against a group of left-wing pundits on the subject of President Obama announcing his support for gay marriage. The liberal bloc of guests included MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, and Washington Post columnists Jonathan Capehart and Kathleen Parker. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Parker cheered Obama's use of the word "evolving" to describe his flip-flop on gay marriage: "I think that's the perfect word to describe this conversation because the American people are evolving on this issue. And increasingly they're coming on the side of same-sex marriage being the right side of history..."
By Matt Hadro | March 17, 2011 | 4:23 PM EDT
Jon Meacham, the liberal host of PBS's "Need to Know," frankly admitted Thursday that media scrutiny of President Bush would far surpass the mild criticism of Barack Obama when it comes to a 10-minute ESPN segment on the President filling out his NCAA Tournament bracket.
Stalwart liberals such as MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski and California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom (D) agreed.
"My only point is that Bush would have gotten more barbecued for this," Meacham claimed on "Morning Joe" Thursday. "Anyone who thinks that he didn't – he wouldn't – is crazy." The panel was debating the merits of President Obama appearing on ESPN to discuss basketball while Libya is in turmoil and Japan is facing a possible nuclear catastrophe.
By Jeff Poor | July 6, 2010 | 1:47 PM EDT
It's pretty well documented MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski likes to brag about her workout routine and showcase its effects on her physique. And perhaps for that reason, Brzezinski believes that entitles her to pass judgment on what consumers should put into their bodies.
On MSNBC's July 6 "Morning Joe," Brzezinski boasted about San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's vending machine soda ban that took effect today. But Brzezinski wanted to take it a step further - not to just ban them in city vending machines, but just stop people from drinking soda altogether.
"And in San Francisco, a ban on sugary drinks in city vending machines is starting to take effect," Brzezinski said. "That's so great. It was issued by Mayor Gavin Newsom, my new hero, Mike Barnicle -- in an effort to combat obesity and improve citizen's health, and it will. In fact, if people would just not drink soda pop, they would be healthier and less fat."
By Jeff Poor | October 21, 2009 | 5:06 PM EDT
Want to make a big splash to bolster your chances in a political campaign? A tried and true strategy for some attorneys general has been to champion a populist position by exploiting the legal system for publicity. Just look at the lead up to the launch of former New York AG Eliot Spitzer gubernatorial campaign with his attacks on Wall Street.
And that appears to be the playbook California Attorney General Jerry Brown is using in a lawsuit accusing State Street (NYSE:STT) of cheating the state's two largest pension funds, the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, of at least $56.6 million.
However, CNBC's Michele Caruso-Cabrera wasn't afraid to ask Brown if that was indeed the case in an Oct. 20 interview on CNBC's "Power Lunch."
By P.J. Gladnick | September 5, 2009 | 10:07 AM EDT
As noted by John Stephenson of NewsBusters, much of the media has been ignoring the enormous Van Jones controversy. However, Joe Garofoli, the politics writer and blogger for Jones' hometown newspaper, the liberal San Francisco Chronicle, has just written about the toxic effect of Van Jones and who is standing by their Van and who isn't in his Politics blog:
The Bay Area's Van Jones -- the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality -- just finished apologizing for calling Republicans "a-holes" when he got something else to start explaining: How his signature got on a 2004 petition asking for an immediate "inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur." Van said he didn't carefully review the petition before signing it "certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."
By Jeff Poor | April 23, 2009 | 5:29 PM EDT
The attacks on Miss California Carrie Prejean have gotten so bad that even same-sex marriage champion and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking notice.
Prejean, the runner-up of last Sunday's Miss USA pageant, has been the target of reports from the Hollywood media intelligentsia after her feud with gossip blogger Perez Hilton for the stance she took on same-sex marriage. And Newsom, who had just announced his intentions to run for governor of California, has noticed.
"I want to challenge her on her point-of-view," Newsom said in an appearance at Sapphire Energy, a bio-tech company, which aired on NBC's San Francisco affiliate on April 23. "She challenged me on my point-of-view and she spoke her conscience. What more can you ask? I speak my conscience, she should speak hers. So, I think she's being a little unfairly maligned."
By P.J. Gladnick | December 2, 2008 | 9:04 AM EST
The only thing remotely interesting about San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's bizarre decision to upload his incredibly dull 7.5 hour "state of the city" speech to YouTube is the knowledge that it is sure to inspire parodies. So how dull is Newsom's speech? Well I challenge you to listen to just a couple of minutes of it without hearing the beckoning call of Mr. Sandman enticing you to enter a deep slumber. Here is the take on this YouTube speech by Michelle Malkin:
Hey, remember that judge who sentenced noise violators to Barry Manilow music? Here’s a worse sentence: Sitting through 7.5 hours of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom droning on and on and on about the “state of the city.” There are YouTube segments on health care, education, and the environment. But nada on the city’s infamously deadly illegal alien sanctuary policies.
He’s uploaded his entire speech on YouTube. Even his fellow libs can’t take it:
By Ken Shepherd | October 21, 2008 | 1:36 PM EDT
If only elderly voters in California would die off in large enough numbers before November 4, then the final nail could be hammered in the coffin of California Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. That according to liberal activist Kristina Wilfore, the executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, "an advocacy organization that specializes in using ballot initiatives to further liberal causes." Her comments were buried deep inside Michael Lindenberger's October 21 item at Time.com:
Wilfore says she's prepared to take the long view in California. "I am not going to be discouraged if we lose," she says. Victory will come over time in the courts, as demographics works its influence on the nation's voting patterns, she says, noting that young people support gay marriage far more than their parents and grandparents do. "A lot of people are going to have to die" before Election Day is an easy day for gay marriage, she says.
While Wilfore was not wishing for the deaths of thousands of elderly conservative voters per se, one can imagine the ire the media would focus on such a statement of say a conservative activist annoyed with elderly voters blocking Social Security reforms.