Democrats and their Left Flank

What Is Gavin Newsom Hiding? 

Christopher F. Rufo, Santiago Vidal Calvo, Ryan Thorpe | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

“For much of his political career, California Governor Gavin Newsom has presented himself as a champion of open government. … But when we have asked for records, his administration has repeatedly closed the vaults, mobilizing an army of public employees to delay or deny. Which, in turn, raises an important question: What is Gavin Newsom hiding? …

“Newsom’s office has an aggressive email-deletion policy, which further limits the scope of records that ever see the light of day. ‘Under our approved records retention schedule,’ Newsom’s legal affairs secretary wrote to us, ‘emails are automatically deleted after 90 days unless they are manually preserved by the individual account holder or subject to a litigation hold.’

“Compare California’s approach with that of some other states. Texas requires the governor to retain certain high-level communications for four years. Connecticut requires the ‘permanent’ retention of constituent correspondence with the governor’s office. …

“That is not how government is supposed to work. The entire purpose of transparency laws is that the public does not need to take a politician’s rhetoric at face value, and that everyone—journalists, citizens, organizations—has a right to inspect most documents related to the operations of their government.”

Weed Is Everywhere. For Now.

By Charles Fain Lehman | The Free Press | Photo by RICHARD A. BROOKS/AFP via Getty Images

“For the first time on record, more Americans consume marijuana every day than smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol every day. … That’s significant because, for a long time, alcohol has been the reference point for advocates of legalization. We tolerate alcohol just fine, so the argument goes, and alcohol prohibition failed. Alcohol is a popular recreational intoxicant, just like marijuana. Doesn’t legalization just mean adding another product like—or, arguably, healthier than—alcohol to our culture?

“The new data answer with a resounding ‘no.’ …

“As the public’s and elites’ views of marijuana worsen in response to the rise in cannabis use disorder and other negative health outcomes, the hard core of daily users may find themselves at an increasing political disadvantage. Unlike alcohol users, they will not have majority consumption on their side. Instead, they will be a political minority, in a democracy with a demonstrated willingness to severely curtail a minority’s access to vicious substances.”

"You cannot have a democracy and a socialist economy."

By Daniel Di Martino

“You can live in a country without democratic freedoms and with economic freedoms...but in those countries, people don't starve to death. In those countries, people actually immigrate.

“All those countries are actually richer on average than the United States. But there is not a single example of a socialist economy that is democratic."

The Meaning of Haley Stevens’s Defeat

By Jesse Arm | City Journal | Photo by Finn Gomez/Getty Images

“The Michigan primary illustrates a major problem confronting the Democratic Party. Its mainstream has become increasingly reluctant to articulate what distinguishes it from its hardline left. Many establishment Democrats behave as though their own beliefs are now political liabilities.

“(Haley) Stevens had countless opportunities during the campaign to make the affirmative case for the kind of Democrat she claims to be. … Democrats once championed America as a melting pot and assimilation as a civic ideal. Increasingly, too many appear reluctant to defend those principles lest they offend activist factions determined to refract domestic politics through the ethnic and ideological conflicts of the Middle East. …

“Party loyalty has limits. Stevens could have declined to endorse either candidate. She could have said that, while Democratic voters made their choice, El-Sayed’s conduct and judgment prevented her from campaigning for him, as fellow Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Hillary Scholten has indicated she will do. Stevens could acknowledge that the arguments she made before the primary remain true.

“By instead supporting the same candidate whom she warned voters was unfit, Stevens has diminished her own credibility and validated the activist Left’s longstanding critique that establishment Democrats ultimately stand for little beyond holding office.”

Head Start Has Never Worked

By Heather Mac Donald | City Journal | Photo by Douglas Graham/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images

“Last year, the White House contemplated cutting $12.2 billion from Head Start’s funding. That $12 billion is roughly what the program costs today. … Then the administration, facing protest, reversed course. Today, the Administration for Children and Families at HHS touts how it has not cut Head Start’s budget at all but has instead merely pared back the program’s 133 pages of federal requirements imposed on state and local partners.

“The administration should have stood its ground. Head Start does not ‘work,’ contrary to the Times. … The Times’s reporting on the Trump deregulation effort ignores the most significant research ever done on Head Start. A randomized controlled trial found that any early gains in school readiness among enrollees had faded by the end of first grade and were absent by third grade. The results were published by HHS in 2010 and 2012. Academic attempts to discredit this ‘fadeout’ effect have failed.”