Newsom’s Failures Exposed in California Gubernatorial Debate

 About an hour and 44 minutes into this week’s debate among seven candidates for governor of California, the moderator asked a question that he said had been sent in by "Henry in San Bernardino." It said, "Governor Newsom made several high-profile commitments, such as addressing housing affordability, reducing homelessness, and improving public safety that some Californians feel remain unmet or insufficiently delivered. What concrete accountability mechanisms would you put in place to ensure that your own commitments are not just announced but measurably delivered within a defined timeline?"

The question underscored an awkward reality for the six Democrats on stage and for the party as a whole. The Golden State governor, Gavin Newsom, is near the top of polls for the 2028 presidential nomination. He has an autobiography, Young Man in a Hurry: a Memoir of Discovery, scheduled for publication in just a few weeks, on Feb. 24, that is already bringing a burst of press attention. Vogue is warning middle-aged women readers: "He is embarrassingly handsome."

Yet after seven years with Newsom as governor, California is still suffering—not only from the problems Newsom got elected originally trying to fix, but from others that he has helped create along the way.

"We have the highest poverty rate in the United States of America," said a former mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. "In our cities, we’ve had too much crime." Villaraigosa said the state had spent $24 billion supposedly combating homelessness, "and homelessness went up."

"Let’s face it, the cost of gas is high," acknowledged the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurmond, another Democrat running for governor.

If Newsom does end up as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028, his opponents in the primary and general elections could make a pretty good attack ad just showing six other Democrats talking about what one of them, the mayor of San Jose, Matt Mahan, called "the brutally high cost of housing" and "the obvious failures of our policies to address homelessness."

The former California state controller, Betty Yee, said politicians "should feel ashamed" of the impacts that "green energy" policies have had on low-income communities. She said the California government is "spending more than we are bringing in," even though the state is not in a recession.

Yee said Californians "can’t afford a leader who thinks grandstanding is actually governing." She left unclear who the comment was directed at, but California voters are surely picking up what she was putting down.

Another Democratic candidate, Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general and former U.S. secretary of health and human services, said "the governor’s office is not a place for on-the-job training or inflated promises." Like Yee, he didn’t name the target of that comment, but it also might have been interpreted as casting shade at Newsom, who was elected in 2018 and is term-limited.

The sole Republican candidate on the debate stage, Steve Hilton, said "the biggest driver of the high cost of living is Democrat policies." He said the state had suffered from "16 years of Democrat one-party rule." The most recent Republican governor of California was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who left office in January 2011. Presidents Nixon and Reagan were California Republicans, as was House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, but the party has struggled to compete in statewide elections in recent years.

As in other Democrat-dominated cities and states, the effect has been that the highest-stakes ideological battles are sometimes within the Democratic Party itself. Some of those rifts were on display in the debate, with Thurmond and billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer anchoring the far left, and Villaraigosa and Mahan sounding more pragmatic, technocratic, and moderate by comparison. Steyer, Thurmond, and Yee backed a billionaire tax that, as Steyer put it, has rendered "the big tech CEOs … terrified." Steyer and Thurmond also said they favored abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thurmond said he backed "universal health care for all, including undocumented immigrants." Steyer said he backs rent control.

A question about whether the candidates backed Newsom’s push to ban gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035 also exposed differences among the candidates, with Thurmond and Yee favoring the policy and with Villaraigosa and Hilton opposing it. Mahan dodged: "only if the technology is there."

Other sections of the debate dealt with California’s incomplete and over-budget high-speed rail project; its K-12 public education system that was compared unfavorably to that of Mississippi; homeowners insurers fleeing the state; and a lack of funding for drug treatment programs.

If the Democrats don’t nominate Newsom for president in 2028, there is always Kamala Harris, another California Democrat. The nonpartisan primary election in the governor’s race is June 2, 2026. Several candidates who did not participate in the televised debate are also running in the primary, including Rep. Eric Swalwell, who is a Democrat, and the sheriff of Riverside County, Calif., Chad Bianco, who is a Republican.

https://freebeacon.com/california/newsoms-failures-exposed-in-california-gubernatorial-debate/

Mike Tyson DELIVERS KNOCKOUT BLOW To Big Food In EPIC Super Bowl Ad

 by Steve Watson

In a stunning Super Bowl spot that cuts through the corporate clutter, boxing legend Mike Tyson lays bare the hidden killer in America’s diet: processed foods. Backed by the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, Tyson pulled no punches, calling out the lies that have fueled an obesity epidemic and chronic diseases ravaging the nation.

The ad marks a pivotal win in the fight against Big Food’s grip, aligning perfectly with the administration’s aggressive push to slash added sugars and promote nutrient-dense, American-grown eats. It’s a clear signal that the junk food agenda is on the ropes.

The ad features Tyson in raw, black-and-white footage, delivering a personal and powerful message. “The most important fight of my life isn’t in the ring,” Tyson declares. “I’m not fighting for a belt. I’m fighting for our health. Processed foods are killing us. We have been lied to and we need to eat real food again.”

Tyson shares his own battles, revealing he once ballooned to 340 pounds, describing himself as “fat and nasty” while downing “a quart of ice cream every hour.” He drives home the tragedy by recounting how his sister died at 25 from a heart attack linked to obesity. “We’re the most powerful country in the world, and we have the most obese, fudgy people,” he adds, slamming the complacency that has allowed ultra-processed junk to dominate shelves.

On screen, stark warnings flash: “Processed Food Kills” followed by “Eat Real Food,” culminating with Tyson and his son biting into fresh apples, directing viewers to RealFood.gov for more.

Tyson today posted the ad on X, emphasizing its urgency. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded with praise: “Thank you for sharing your story Mike — and delivering the most important message in Super Bowl history. We don’t have to be the sickest country in the developed world. The answer is simple: EAT REAL FOOD.”

Tyson replied: “Thank you @SecKennedy for prioritizing our country’s disease epidemic and how real food is a big part of the solution. Our nation’s health is our real wealth.”

This collaboration underscores the Trump admin’s no-nonsense approach to health, building on the massive MAHA reset announced last month. As previously covered, Secretary Kennedy and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins overhauled federal dietary guidelines, declaring war on added sugars and ultra-processed foods while championing high-quality proteins, healthy fats, and whole foods from American farms.

That reset ended subsidies for junk in schools and federal programs, targeting the root of skyrocketing healthcare costs and chronic illnesses pushed by globalist food giants. Tyson’s ad amplifies this, exposing how Big Food’s additives and lies have eroded public health, aligning with America First priorities to rebuild strength from the inside out.

The ad’s impact is undeniable—viewers flooded social media with support, vowing to ditch the processed slop for real, homegrown nutrition. It’s a direct hit against those who profit from keeping Americans sick and dependent on pharma fixes.

The Super Bowl ad reaches millions at a time when obesity rates hover near 40 percent, draining billions in taxpayer dollars. Tyson’s raw testimony cuts through the noise, reminding us that true freedom starts with controlling what we put in our bodies—not letting corporate overlords dictate our decline.

https://modernity.news/2026/02/06/mike-tyson-delivers-knockout-blow-to-big-food-in-epic-super-bowl-ad/

The High Cost of Immigrant Welfare

 by Steven A. Camarota

The unfolding Minnesota scandal in which Somali immigrants defrauded social services of billions of dollars has received a lot of attention, but it points to an even larger issue surrounding immigrants and the social safety net: the high percentage who use our welfare system legally.

Analysis of the U.S. government’s Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that more than half of immigrant-headed households use at least one welfare program today. The reason is simply that a large share of immigrants have modest levels of education, and their resulting low incomes allow them to qualify for aid.

As the Minnesota welfare scandal highlighted, there are vast amounts of American taxpayer dollars involved, a limited resource that should be spent prudently. By their consumption of scarce public resources, immigrants make it more difficult to assist the poor who were born here, which raises key questions about immigration’s impact on the U.S. labor market and especially on blue collar workers.

There is a common misconception that welfare mainly consists of cash payments to those who do not work. But in fact, most welfare programs are in-kind transfers such as Medicaid, food assistance, or public housing. Working does not prevent someone or their dependents from accessing most of those programs, including some of the cash programs. What matters is income, their number of dependents, and sometimes assets, not employment itself.

The U.S. Census Bureau defines “social welfare programs” as those “based on a low income means-tested eligibility criteria.” Examples cited by the bureau include Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, sometimes called food stamps), and the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC). To these can be added public or subsidized housing, free- and reduced-price school meals, and Medicaid. There is also the “refundable” portion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which provides cash payments to workers who pay no federal income tax.

Source: Center for Immigration Studies

Most new legal immigrants, as well as illegal immigrants, are barred from using most welfare programs. However, for several reasons these restrictions have only a modest impact on welfare use by immigrant households.

For one, immigrants, even including illegal immigrants, can receive benefits on behalf of U.S.-born children. Second, the restriction does not apply to all programs, including WIC and school meals, nor does it apply to non-citizen children in some cases.

Some states also provide their own welfare services to otherwise ineligible immigrants, and several million illegal immigrants have obtained work authorization or Social Security numbers (e.g. DACA, Temporary Protected Status, and many parolees) allowing receipt of the EITC. Naturalized green card holders gain full welfare eligibility, and many legal immigrants have lived here long enough to qualify for welfare even without naturalizing. Collectively, this means that millions of immigrants receive support from the U.S. taxpayer.

The 2024 SIPP shows that 53% of all immigrant households use one or more welfare programs, compared to 37% of U.S.-born households. Based on this data, my best estimate is that 51% of households headed by legal immigrants and 61% of households headed by illegal immigrants use at least one major welfare program. Compared to U.S.-born households, those headed by immigrants make especially heavy use of food programs, Medicaid, and the EITC.

If one assumes that immigration is supposed to benefit the United States, such high welfare use by immigrants is extremely problematic.

The federal government spends roughly $1 trillion per year on welfare, and states spend another $300 billion a year on Medicaid alone. High welfare use makes it likely that immigrants are a net fiscal drain, both because of direct costs and because those accessing means-tested programs typically pay little to no federal or state income tax. This assistance should go toward helping the needy and low-income already here.

It is important to point out that immigrants’ use of welfare is not caused by an unwillingness to work. In fact, immigrant households are more likely to have a worker present than U.S.-born households (who are more likely to include retirees). However, 53% of immigrant households with at least one worker access the welfare system, compared to 38% of working native households.

Here too, the impact of immigrant workers on the native-born population is likely to be a net negative. An increased supply of labor, especially at the low end of the market, will put downward pressure on wages, keeping more employees of all kinds on assistance programs. Employers lobby heavily for more foreign labor, but they overlook the welfare costs those workers and their families create because such costs are diffuse—borne by all taxpayers.

The key policy question is whether we should continue to allow in large numbers of less-educated foreign workers when stemming the flow could cause wages to rise, drawing less-educated U.S.-born men back into the labor force and off of federal assistance.

Working on Welfare

Immigration advocates attempt several responses to this data. The first is to simply ignore it and claim that eligibility restrictions prevent immigrants from using welfare programs. Second, the Cato Institute and others argue that Social Security and Medicare should be included in welfare use rates, though somewhat amusingly, Cato’s own Poverty and Welfare Handbook explicitly excludes those programs because they are “more universal.” The Census Bureau correctly calls these programs “social insurance” and considers them distinct from welfare because one has to pay into them to receive benefits.

Another argument is that low-income immigrants are no more likely to use welfare than low-income natives. This is true for some programs, but not others. But more importantly, immigrants are significantly more likely to be low-income than natives. The poverty rate for immigrant households in the 2024 SIPP was 41% higher than for U.S.-born households.

Some immigration boosters further assert that if the U.S.-born dependent children of immigrant parents receive WIC, food stamps, Medicaid, or any other benefit, such benefits should be attributed to natives instead of immigrants. Using this approach, Cato argues in a recent report that immigrants’ use of welfare is not all that high and that they are actually a net fiscal benefit. In order to believe that result, one would also have to believe that when immigrants come to America and have children whom they are unable to support, and then turn to the welfare system for support, the resulting costs have nothing to do with immigration.

Assuming away the enormous cost of providing welfare to the dependent children of immigrants ignores the obvious fact that immigrants benefit directly when the government provides food, funding, housing, or medical care to their children. Those welfare costs would not exist if their parents had not been allowed into the country. Additionally, 37% of childless immigrant households access one or more welfare programs compared to 29% of childless U.S.-born households. Children are not the only reason that immigrant welfare use is high.

A 2017 National Academy of Sciences study ran eight different fiscal scenarios looking at all the costs versus all the tax payments immigrants and their descendants might make over 75 years—with four coming out negative and four positive. Those results are not only ambiguous, they’re extremely speculative, requiring assumptions about the future economic mobility of generations not yet born, along with predicting future tax rates and spending. At present, the NAS study found that immigrants were a net drain, with welfare being a big reason why.

The primary reason for heavy welfare use among immigrants is their relatively modest levels of education and resulting low incomes compared to American citizens. Of households headed by an immigrant without a bachelor’s degree, 68% access the welfare system, compared to 34% for those headed by an immigrant with a college education. Education makes a huge difference, but only about one-fifth of legal permanent immigrants were admitted because of their education or skills. Illegal immigrants of course are not selected for their education at all.

One might argue that we could bring in large numbers of less-educated immigrant workers without burdening the welfare system if we just had more laws and rules to prevent them from accessing it. However, the heavy use of welfare by existing illegal immigrant households shows this is not likely to work. Moreover, it is difficult to imagine Americans denying things like medical care and food programs to low-income immigrants and their children once here.

Many immigrants come to America to work, but struggle to support themselves or their children once they arrive and turn to taxpayers. As a result, heavy immigrant use of welfare not only creates significant fiscal costs, it strains the social safety net, reducing the funds that might otherwise go to the poor who are already here.

When presented with this information, many Americans are fond of pointing out that their immigrant ancestors did not use welfare. But the truth is that these programs didn’t even exist 100 years ago. Looking forward, we need to ensure that our immigration system reflects the realities of the modern American labor market and the existence of the welfare state.

If we want immigration to avoid burdening the public fisc in the future, then moving to a system that selects legal immigrants for their education and likely earning power, coupled with robust immigration enforcement, would significantly reduce the size and scale of this problem in the future.

https://www.commonplace.org/p/steven-camarota-the-high-cost-of