DIS GUY is such a smiling pile of unctuous ooze, I can’t begin to describe the revulsion Gavin Newsom induces even having to think about him, less mind write about something he’s done.

But the governor of California just can’t seem to keep his gleaming pearly whites out of the headlines for long, and now he’s back in the spotlight again.

You all will remember Newsom’s shameless visit to China last month. The one where a regime that couldn’t scramble a third tier diplomat to shake our vegetative president’s hand turned out everything but Mao’s embalmed body to welcome the Gavinor. And threw in an imperial treatment tour for good measure?

Even suck-up lefty leaning Politico couldn’t resist the verbal eyeball rolls at the pretentious Newsom and his packaging efforts (all courtesy of CA taxpayers, mind you).

…”over-the-top press materials”…”inability to resist the glamour shot”…

The only thing missing from that picture is a feather boa and a grand piano with a Chinese lantern candelabra.

Whatever gravitas the Gavinor hoped to be able to schmear himself with – by virtue of his well-orchestrated visit with the repressive Communists – doesn’t appear to have materialized, at least not in more serious quarters. The consensus opinion is that the man is a willing dupe…

To understand just how foolish, damaging, and self-aggrandizing Newsom's China trip was, I'd recommend this piece by Rep. Mike Gallagher, Chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Among the highlights: 

-"I have criticized President Biden's diplomatic… https://t.co/eJR4xGRwmz

— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) November 9, 2023

…if not an outright dope.

The phony of @GavinNewsom on the world stage. https://t.co/038ZjwHcgz

— Ying Ma (@GZtoGhetto) November 6, 2023

So what should Californians glean from their governor’s global gallivanting last week?

We learned that Gavin Newsom won’t let tinges of hypocrisy impede his obsession with becoming a national, or even international, political figure.

…That said, China’s autocratic regime is not fundamentally different from Vladimir Putin in Russia or Hamas in Palestine. All want more power, all trample on human rights – often with indiscriminate violence – and all see the United States as the major impediment.

…Finally, his soft-pedaling approach to China stands in stark contrast to his drumbeat of harsh rhetoric – which continued during his travels – directed at Republican politicians in America.

China got what it wanted: a stamp of approval from an ambitious American political figure. And Newsom got what he wanted, which was more image-enhancing media attention.

Newsom loves nothing more than autocratic powers, which is probably why he had such a great dang time in China. Kindred spirits, as it were.

In fact, the gov may have come back from Beijing with more than Forbidden City souvenirs and a professed fondness for cheap Chinese electric vehicles made with stolen technology – he seems to come back inspired by the Chinese way of doing things, especially as he’d already laid the groundwork. He just needed someone to show him how to move forward – how to tie it all together with a neat digital bow.

In 2019, CA got started on something called “Cradle-to-Career” which is meant to be a longitudinal data set from kindergarten through college age, and all the financial info needed to clear obstacles from pathways to success.

Sound Orwellian much?

Well, it’s not, cynical ones. It’s all about equity.

The Cradle-to-Career System seeks to foster evidence-based decision-making to help Californians build more equitable futures and empower individuals to reach their full potential.

It’s also marvelous and friendly and in soothing colors…

…so you don’t pay as much attention to the “longitudinal data” collection part of it.

…Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators understand that a full, equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates smart decisions made with comprehensive information. In the most recent budget proposal, they allocated funding to continue creating the California Cradle-to-Career Data System.

This system would link existing datasets on early education, K-12 education, college and career readiness, college enrollment, college success and entry into the workforce. It would enable students, families, educators, policymakers and the public to evaluate educational programs, illuminate roadblocks to access, find solutions for supporting students and inform decision-making about everything from new legislation to which postsecondary options to pursue.

They’ve been building this network for the past four years so they can collect data on every school kid, their parents, and whatever else. For the children covers a lot of territory and usually meets with little resistance as far as objections go until it’s too late.

The Gavinor, back from social credit score authoritarian land, had an oddly timed announcement regarding the C2C program. It has some people wondering if he was inspired by what he experienced in China.

And, golly Nell – that’s a milestone, but I’m not sure it’s something to celebrate.

Today Governor Gavin Newsom announced the state of California’s Cradle-to-Career Data System (C2C) reached a pivotal phase in its effort to transform education and workforce development. In October 2023, C2C successfully received its first data installment from data partners and will now integrate more than 1 billion data points that have been collected and validated at the state level. C2C’s integration of data will provide the public, researchers, and lawmakers unprecedented insight that could improve education and quality of life for millions of Californians.

WHAT GOVERNOR NEWSOM SAID: “By leveraging billions of data points, California’s Cradle-to-Career data system will be a game-changer for improving the quality of life for millions of Californians and highlighting ways to improve opportunity in the classroom and access to the workforce. Through insights and innovation only made possible by this system, the Golden State is leading the nation in equitably connecting our education system to the workforce to ensure every Californian has the freedom to succeed.”

Taking an unprecedented approach of linking datasets from K-12 and higher education, social service, and workforce entities, with today’s announcement the state is on the verge of uniting information from disconnected data across sectors and providing insights previously unavailable. Using the user-friendly system, the public, researchers, and lawmakers will be able to access detailed information on education and career outcomes, workforce trends, and more — broken down by race, gender, ability, and geography to illuminate and address areas of strength and needed growth, and any inequities. By linking data from multiple sources, C2C aims to illuminate gaps and identify opportunities throughout students’ education experiences so they can ultimately reach their goals for life and careers.

There’s a lot of data for a lot of people to access they’ve been scooping up, no? Is anything left out? This sounds horribly intrusive. And to what end will this be used? Who determines what’s equitable, what goals should be reached, what’s “needed growth” – is that better math skills or recurrent white privilege training?

It sounds like a huge sorting facility to separate wheat from chaff equitably, which means race-based for starters if I’ve been learning the code-words correctly over the past couple of years.

Lord knows I have zero faith in Newsom, none in the upper tiers of education, nor CA government itself.

This has bad Big Brother juju written all over it to me.