Gov. Gavin Newsom found himself in hot – OK, well, it’s California, so let’s say “lukewarm” – water after it turns out the Democrat governor partied it up at a friend’s birthday in violation of his own COVID guidance.
It turns out Newsom recently attended the 50th birthday party of one of his political advisors, Jason Kinney, held at the upscale French Laundry on November 6th. And it also turns out there were guests from several different families in attendance – a major no-no, according to Newsom’s own guidance limiting gatherings to people from no more than three households.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports there were a dozen attendees at the party from more than three families.
“While our family followed the restaurant’s health protocols and took safety precautions, we should have modeled better behavior and not joined the dinner,” Newsom later said in a statement.
But little comfort that is to the parents of California children still not permitted to attend school in-person (not Newsom's, of course - his kids go to a private school that's currently open) and the crippled businesses who've sued amid the state's continued shutdowns and who've filed lawsuits in cities like L.A. to recoup the licensing fees they were required to pay even while being forced to stay closed due to the pandemic.
But it looks like rules for thee but not for me is a common mantra among Democrat state and local leaders, many of whom have established long histories of disregarding the crippling COVID rules they’ve imposed on the general and far less privileged populace. Unable to stop herself from issuing endless and unconstitutional restrictions on her own residents, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her husband caught flak over the summer after Dr. Marc Mallory name-dropped his wife and tried to pressure a local marina into putting his boat in the water ahead of everyone else who’d waited for the governor to lift her restrictions on boating.
Just last week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot partied in the streets without a mask to celebrate Joe Biden’s presumptive win over President Donald Trump – just a few days before issuing a 30-day stay-at-home advisory to her residents and telling them to cancel their Thanksgiving Day plans with their families.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has yet to "allow" churches to gather for indoor worship services, not only permitted throngs of Biden supporters to party in her city’s streets following Election Day – she also attended a celebration for Biden in Delaware, where most other visitors are being required to quarantine for 14 days after arriving in the state. That mandate wasn’t placed on Bowser or other political attendees, of course. Bowser later defended the trip as “essential travel.”
(Cover Photo: Gage Skidmore)