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Saturday, May 9, 2026

Gavin's dirty diapers

 by Monica Showalter

So this really happened:

According to San Francisco-based KRON4:

Gov. Gavin Newsom was joined by other state officials in San Francisco’s Exploratorium museum on Friday morning to announce a partnership with the nonprofit Baby2Baby on a new statewide program that will distribute diapers to the families of all newborns in California.

The Golden Gate Start program, set to begin this year at hospitals with large numbers of Medi-Cal patients, will provide 400 free diapers to all newborns at select centers before expanding to all medical and birthing centers across the state.

Newsom said the state will be the “first in the nation” to provide a free diaper program — something he believes will help reduce the financial strain families face and encourage more people to have children. He said the average cost of diapers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has risen by 45%, and when coupled with other rising costs can put families in difficult financial situations.

“The biggest problem, defined universally in our city, our state and our nation, is the issue of affordability,” said Newsom. “This is what affordability looks like. It’s not a slogan, it’s a box of diapers.”

It's pure Hugo Chavez theatre, hurling out diaper bundles to the penniless descamisados and expecting political favors in return as midterms approach. It was probably meant that way, too, given that the intended audience would have recognized the gambit well: One out of seven, or 64,000, babies are born in California each year have parents who are illegal immigrants. Most are on Medi-Cal, the state's low-income 'free' health care insurance, and local news in San Diego reported that hospitals with the most Medi-Cal recipients were selected as first in line to get the free diapers.

The problems with this go well beyond the Chavista tactics.

The diapers are being distributed at a big markup for a Newsom crony:

Hand them a Costco membership and a hundred bucks for diapers at a net cost of $165 and they will have many more diapers than the 400-per-baby that Newsom is handing out. Twelve cents a diaper at Costco, 50 or 60 cents a diaper under this Baby2Baby handout program. Worse still, welfare recipients already get free diapers through CalWorks, so this is just gravy that can be sold on the black market.

But it gets grosser: What else is in this dirty diaper if we dig deeper?

That Newsom crony drawing the profit off the 'partnership' is all in the family.

According to Katy Grimes, writing at the California Globe:

Gavin Newsom isn’t just giving away free diapers, he’s helping fund, at taxpayer expense, Baby2Baby, whose mission says it “provides children in need with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves.”

And notably, one of Baby2Baby’s Co-CEOs, Norah Weinstein, sits on the board of the First Partner’s California Partners Project. “Kelly Sawyer Patricof and Norah Weinstein are the Co-CEOs of Baby2Baby,” their website says.

The other person who sits on the board of the California Partners Project is one Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who just happened to be married to Gavin Newsom.

Family values indeed, all through the diapers.

Grimes continues:

Okay, they want to give free diapers to every baby leaving the hospital.

“Through Baby2Baby’s existing statewide partnerships with hospitals, community-based organizations, and Welcome Baby programs, Baby2Baby will manage diaper procurement, warehousing, and hospital distribution of the Golden State Start program, providing diapers for newborns in all regions of the state.”

Hospitals already send new mothers home with some free diapers, donated by Pampers or Huggies.

And if Gov. Newsom was not running a new $20 million grift through a $77 million “non-profit,” the state could just provide coupons for free diapers to new mothers. But then money couldn’t be disappeared into a non-profit, or co-mingled or diverted.

So it's all about profit for Newsom's friends, now that the old governorship is coming to an end, in what Latino voters would recognize as 'La Piñata,' or, the urge of exiting politicians to steal everything that isn't nailed down before leaving office and usually fleeing the country. The diaper program is redundant. It's unneccessary, It's costly to taxpayers, particularly since it could be distributed more cheaply through vouchers.

But here Newsom is, touting it and we can see all that's in it.

 The smell of dirty diapers is all around him with this grifty deal, and he's not even hiding it.

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