California Gov. Gavin Goodhair Declares Dolly Parton Day, Signs Bunch Of Other Bills, Makes Everybody Angry

Happy Dolly Parton Day to all who celebrate, and more!

Dispatches from California! (Photo by Shot By Joe on Unsplash)

Happy Dolly Parton Day to all who celebrate!

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was among the leaders who decreed last week that today, Sept. 25, is Dolly Parton Day, because in the United States we write our dates like this: Month/Day/Year, unless we are European or pretentious, so Sept. 25 is 9/25, which if you say it out loud sounds like Nine Two Five, which itself sounds like the name of a very famous song that Dolly Parton wrote and sang.

(It’s funnier when you don’t have to explain it.)

Let’s all enjoy St. Dolly together!

She wrote that song using her acrylic nails, because she thought they sounded a bit like a typewriter. It’s on the recording! She was such a treasure. Thank you, St. Dolly, for cleansing our morning with your presence.

Now back to my roundup of Gov. Goodhair and some of the legislation he’s signed — or declined to sign — over the last few days, some of which have made a lot of people very angry. Other bills have made more people very angry!

El Niño State Of Emergency

I’ll start with one that actually is kind of good, but for a bad reason: Gov. Newsom has signed a proclamation saying that we, California, are in a state of emergency due to the incoming El Niño that is apparently going to destroy our beaches, reshape our coastlines, and turn us upside down and shake us for all our lunch money.

That’s good! The longer this El Niño business goes on, the worse it looks. Locally, we’re down at least one beach and one set of cliffs this month alone, and it’s worse up the coast. Also, I guess we’re getting September flash-flooding up in San Berdoo. Oh boy, is it ever going to be a long, hard, wet year, and not in a good way, either. But at least we’re aware and doing our best to get somewhat prepared to watch our piers wash away into the Pacific??

Data Center Legislation

Never forget that using sustained pressure to bully elected officials into making better decisions is right and good, and you should do it all the time.

Here’s one example of why I say that! Gov. Newsom has signed a slew of bills into law that restrict the activities of data centers in California — a marked turn from his previous stances, but a welcome one to those of us who enjoy paying less than $500 a month for running air conditioning in one (1) room. Now data centers have to pay more of their own way, be accountable to the public, and use more clean energy! Oh no!

Newsom’s signature on the new laws represents a significant departure from his actions on data centers last year, when he vetoed a water disclosure bill over concerns that regulation could stifle AI growth and signed into law only a single stripped-down environmental study bill.

Environmental advocates and the lawmakers behind this year’s bills previously told CalMatters that intensifying public backlash to data center construction propelled the legislation this year, despite a flood of lobbying funds from Big Tech and other business interests that aimed to soften the proposals.

Reuters has a great quote from the Data Center Coalition bitching about losing all that taxpayer money and lack of oversight, which is apparently the only way this industry can function!

“Legislation such ​as these create significant uncertainty and introduces potentially duplicative ​requirements that ⁠make doing business in California an unattractive proposition for data centers and other industries,” Khara Boender, a director of government affairs for the group, said in ⁠a statement. “These ​are likely to further limit data center ​development in California — an already declining market — which pushes job creation, clean energy deployment, and tax revenue ​to neighboring states.”

I’m sorry, what? I couldn’t hear you over the sounds of already living in the fourth-largest economy in the whole-ass world. You can take that cry-bullying and put it right up your AI-hole.

Gender-Affirming And Abortion Care

Newsom declined to sign a bill that would have protected abortion and trans care providers from being extradited to other states, saying that while he supported Assembly Bill 2164 in spirit, he did not wish to restrict future governors’ executive authority.

The bill would have affirmed and cemented an executive order from 2022, which declared that California would not extradite people who provide or help provide abortion or gender-affirming care to patients.

“I am troubled by the precedent that would be set if an outgoing administration agreed with the legislature to erode the executive authority of an incoming governor based on their shared policy preferences, regardless of how righteous and well intended those actions may be,” he said in a statement.

I dunno man, I kind of like having access to gender-affirming care and feel like everybody should be able to access it as they like so they can treat their bodies as they see fit. Gender affirmation isn’t just for trans people, you know. It’s for everybody who is affected by Gender. I go to my nice hair salon and get gender-affirming care there every six to eight weeks! I want everybody to be able to get care, including the trans kids, who deserve a hell of a lot better than what they are getting from everywhere now.

So here is my in-depth analysis of California politics today:

• Dolly Parton Day :)

• Climate stuff, including a new nonbinding economic partnership with Finland :)

• Data center legislation :)

• Gender-affirming and abortion care :(((((((((

You can read more about bills that got signed into law — or didn’t — here.

Whether you think he will leave the state in January better than he found it is, of course, a matter of personal perspectives and politics.

One thing is for sure though: I am absolutely not going to be voting for Gavin Newsom for California governor this year and I don’t think anybody else should, either.