Governor French Laundry has thoughts about dining out while others are hurting. Hypocrisy is an Olympic sport for Dems and Newsom is a gold medalist.

Somewhere in an office in DC establishment Dems are frantically trying to figure out the next oppo dump that will "sink" Platner that will ultimately make the Dem nutty primary voters like him more. Mamdani, Platner, AOC, Bernie... that's the party now. This is who they are.

The smart set thought they could drop oppo on Platner that he had a Nazi tattoo, trained extreme milita/Antifa-types, etc. as if that would turn off Dem primary voters. Those were pluses, not minuses for Dem primary voters. Which is terrifying, but our current reality.

I think Dems are hoping he'll crater, but if you asked conservatives/GOPers there would be zero of them that are surprised that he's not losing support. Dems are either in denial of who their primary voters are now or don't understand their own party at all anymore. Or both?

When is the TGE for $BIRB token by @moonbirds? It Might very well be this quarter, in December just like @pudgypenguins did, As @spencer is kind of following the same pattern and currently minting SBTs, the seeker SBT expires on november 22, That makes me think that the TGE will

“Leeeeeverage” strikes again. Cc: @ComfortablySmug @HolmesJosh @MichaelDuncan

You left 12 Californians in Big Bear to die while you vacationed in Mexico. The gall.

And just an extra one for good measure: shame on Gavin Newsom for not addressing this, for advocating policies that make it harder to become a foster parent in California and easier for children to be sex trafficked. May that man never get near the White House.

I wasn't "called" to be a foster parent more than anyone else. I looked at my life, saw I had extra rooms, and knew that there were children that needed them. It is, in fact, that simple. Don't overcomplicate something that is truly simple.

These children matter. And unless we are smacked in the face with a story like this, most people forget they even exist. Take the training, become a certified foster parent in whatever state you live, open your home, be a safe place for children- they deserve it.

People are often afraid of how they will feel if a kid leaves their home, or something goes awry. But the focus should always be on these children. They deserve to be in a home with someone who gives a damn about them. Who cares about them and treats them like a human being.

Way too many people tell themselves and others, "I can't do that" or "I wasn't called to do that". Don't listen to yourself- these kids need you. You could be the difference between a child being safe and loved, or being trafficked.

Now my plea: part of the reason these kids become so vulnerable as teenagers is because they were bounced from bad foster home to bad foster home when they were younger. There is a big lack of good foster parents who can love these children well and meet their needs.

I can say from personal experience as a former foster parent we encountered a case (I won't go into detail for her privacy) where a teenager got involved in this type of a situation. It was horrifying.

My next point: if you think this is unique to California, you're sadly mistaken. The scale is larger because of the poverty in California, and the sheer volume of people there. But make no mistake: this is happening to foster kids in every state.

It's a really long piece and worth reading the whole thing, and I am going to add a few thoughts of my own. First: this is a crisis. A huge one and Newsom should drop every podcast interview and instead of "owning Trump", he should save these girls. Full stop.

"More than half of the underage girls pulled from the Blade turned out to be from foster care. Even for those who were not runaways, the stories were the same: Traffickers had parked their cars in front of local group homes, waiting for a chance to approach."

"To Ana’s mild surprise, no one from the child-welfare department seemed to come looking for her, either. She wondered if they were relieved to be dealing with one fewer foster kid. It was true that California’s foster care system was buckling under the weight of demand."

"One girl told vice officers that her trafficker had explained things succinctly: “We run Figueroa now,” he said... By the end of 2023, the city attorney had taken to calling Figueroa the Kiddie Stroll because so many of the girls weren’t even 13."

Dem policies always sound good "in theory" but then there's reality: "But when it was implemented in January 2023, the effect was that uniformed officers could no longer apprehend groups of girls in lingerie on Figueroa, hoping to recover minors among them."

"Their jobs grew even more challenging when California repealed the law allowing the police to arrest women who loitered with the intent to engage in prostitution."