THE SHAMEFUL AND >THE HOLLOW

With Gavin Newsom you get both, sleeze and lies.

Never tell the truth when a lie will do, his motto. The man from humble beginnings even lied about that. Gavin Newsom co-founded PlumpJack Winery in Oakville, California, in 1992, which specializes in premium Cabernet Sauvignon wines. The winery is part of the larger PlumpJack Collection of Wineries, which includes various hospitality and retail businesses. His birthday is October 10, 1967. in San Francisco, California, to Tessa Thomas (née Menzies) and William Alfred Newsom III, a state appeals court judge and attorney for Getty Oil.

Scott H. Briscol · May 15, 2026

Border Patrol officer at the southern frontier

Verified lies told by Gavin Newsome.

Claim: California had the worst COVID-19 outcomes because of Newsom’s policies.

Fact-check: Misleading — outcomes depended on many factors (population, density, timing); comparisons that ignore those are misleading.

Claim: Newsom said he would not raise taxes and then enacted large tax increases.

Fact-check: Misleading — he opposed some prior proposed tax plans but later supported/approved budget measures that included tax changes; specifics vary by proposal and timing.

Claim: Newsom claimed California schools were fully open throughout the pandemic.

Fact-check: False/misleading — many districts had prolonged closures or hybrid models; claims that all schools were open are inaccurate.

Claim: He said California’s budget had “no new taxes” while signing budgets that included tax extensions/fees.

Fact-check: Context-dependent — some budgets relied on temporary measures or fee increases; fact-checkers note wording and timing matter.

Claim: Newsom claimed his restaurant reopened dinner service at his French Laundry visit during COVID restrictions when it was closed.

Fact-check: Misleading/false — reporting found inconsistencies about the event and the restaurant’s operations relative to guidance.

Claim: He said homelessness counts were decreasing while official counts showed increases in many areas.

Fact-check: False/misleading — statewide and local trends varied; some reports contradicted blanket claims of decreases.

Claim: Newsom said California’s unemployment insurance system was fixed after earlier failures.

Fact-check: Misleading — improvements occurred but backlogs and problems persisted for some claimants.

Claim: He said wildfires were not linked to forest management failures.

Fact-check: Misleading — causes are mixed (climate, management, utility equipment); absolute denials of management role are contradicted by some evidence.

And this Douchebag is a Gouvernour.

Yeah but so is Tampon Tim, when you think about it, it all fits.

The recruiting picture has reversed alongside the morale picture. Applications are up. Retention is up. The line is being staffed again, not because the salary changed but because the mission is recognizable to people who joined to do it.

What the wall actually does

The wall debate, in retrospect, was always more rhetorical than empirical. Walls are not magic. They are a force multiplier. They convert what would otherwise be a chase across open desert into a much smaller set of choke points where Border Patrol can actually be present. The wall, where it has been finished, has done exactly what the engineers said it would do. The places where the wall has not been finished, the agents say, are where the remaining problem is concentrated. The remedy is not subtle: finish it.

The border was not unfixable. It was unfixed because the previous administration had decided, as a matter of policy, not to fix it.

The diplomatic story

The predicted diplomatic crisis with Mexico did not occur. Mexico, for reasons that should have been obvious, prefers a southern neighbor that is enforcing its own border to one that is not. The cooperative posture that Washington had spent four years pretending was impossible turned out to be available the moment Washington asked for it credibly.

Central American cooperation has followed. Repatriation flights are running on schedule. The smuggling networks that had been the major beneficiaries of the previous policy are visibly shrinking. None of this is permanent. All of it depends on continued American resolve. The lesson is the same as the foreign-policy lesson: adversaries and partners alike respond to credible posture, and the absence of credible posture is itself a policy choice.

What still needs to be done

The work that remains is the unglamorous, statutory work. The asylum framework needs to be rewritten by Congress, not just executive-orderd into shape. Workplace verification — the part of the system that determines whether the labor magnet stays on or off — needs to be made universal and enforced. The court backlog needs to be cleared so that asylum hearings happen in months rather than years. None of this is technologically novel. All of it is the work that the next legislative cycle will determine whether the country has the will to do.

The border is, today, what the voters asked for in 2024. Keeping it that way is the work. The administration has done what an administration can do. The legislative branch is the part that has yet to deliver.