There’s no telling precisely why protesters have targeted Waymos in recent days; people tend not to publicly volunteer explanations for their illegal activities. But there are any number of possible practical and political reasons why they might. Some taking to the streets have reportedly dubbed Waymos “spy cars,” thanks to surveillance footage collected by 360-degree cameras that, as 404 News reported, has previously been obtained and published by the Los Angeles Police Department. Google—Waymo’s parent company—hands over that data upon request, typically via court order, warrant, or subpoena. Like other Silicon Valley firms, Google and its parent company, Alphabet, have either directly or through third parties entered lucrative contracts with the federal government, including ICE. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai attended Trump’s inauguration, to which Google donated $1 million. That company also recently removed a pledge in its AI principles to not develop or deploy products that “cause or are likely to cause overall harm.” Alphabet’s cloud computing unit in April expanded its partnership with fellow defense contractor Palantir to allow for the “reliable and responsible deployment of AI solutions” from Anthropic “for sensitive government use cases.” Andreessen Horowitz—the venture capital fund run by Trump ally Marc Andreessen, known as a16z—was also an early investor in Waymo.
Again, nobody really knows why Waymos were vandalized. Maybe they offered a convenient, on-demand way to block traffic that would inconvenience Google executives rather than regular people who need their cars to get to work and the grocery store. While less common in the United States, burning cars are a ubiquitous part of large-scale protests just about everywhere else on the planet. Waymos were vandalized well before recent protests in Los Angeles for a number of reasons laid out by Brian Merchant, the author of Blood in the Machine. Among them seems to be their tendency to honk at each other outside of apartment buildings at 4 a.m.
KURT SCHLICHTER: On the Upside, Gavin Newsom Is Toast.
The problem is that he’s bad at his job. And he doesn’t even seem to like it. Whenever you see Gavin Newsom in his gov mode, you get the impression that he’d rather be anywhere else doing anything else. It’s not like he actually does anything as governor. With guys like Newsom, it’s not the doing. It’s the being. He wants to be governor; he doesn’t want to do the hard things a real governor does. And it would be the same thing if he were to become president. He wants to be the president; the doing stuff part is a huge hassle that gets in the way of him being the center of attention.
His personal life is just as disastrous as his tenure as governor. He famously had to make a speech confessing that he had tapped his best friend’s wife. Hilariously, Donald Trump, Jr., snagged his former wife, a move so alpha there’s not even a letter of the alphabet to describe Newsom’s status. In the last few days, a professional football player began insisting on Twitter that he had a history of intimate personal interactions with Newsom’s current wife. Yikes. Well, at least Gavin can be secure in the knowledge that if this whole politics thing doesn’t work out, he’ll fit right in as a staffer at “The Bulwark.”
Newsom has not announced that he’s going to run, but he’s obviously going to run. His plan is to occupy the totally empty moderate lane in the upcoming 2028 primaries. As part of that, lately, he has been pretending not to hate conservatives. He went on some conservative shows, and he had some conservatives on his podcast to demonstrate that, “Hey, we can all get along. See? See?” Some conservatives didn’t like the idea of platforming Newsom, but they are wrong. The more you platform him, the more he talks, and the more he talks, the more aware people become that he’s close to being a clinical moron.
Perhaps that explains this pathetic gesture by Newsom: YGBFKM: Gutless Gavin Hides ‘First Amendment’ Speech Behind Copyright Claims to Shut Down Critics.
Finally, this is an utterly corrupt move by both Newsom and iHeart Media, which publishes Newsom’s podcast. Newsom gave that speech as a function of being governor, not a commentator on a podcast. He advocated for his official policies in office, and furthermore, arguably did so in the context of a political campaign against Donald Trump. That speech should have no expectations of copyright protection at all.
This also raises serious questions about the ability of politicians to hide themselves from criticism by declaring themselves “podcasters.” If Newsom and iHeart Media get away with this, every politician across the spectrum will deliver speeches as podcasts and strangle criticism of the content through specious ownership claims. It will create a rhetorical Panem, placing elected and appointed officials beyond the reach of any political accountability, and gut the First Amendment that Gutless Gavin claims to champion.
Newsom might want to take a cue from another longtime resident of California and google the phrase, “Streisand Effect.”
