California Schemin'

Will Kamala Betray Her Best Friend or Betray the Nation?

In California, the Lieutenant Governor is considered the best positioned political player to take the Governor’s mansion. It’s how Gavin Newsom got in. Now that he’s served two terms, Gavin Newsom is not eligible to run in the 2026 election due to term limits. The “favorite” is the current Lt. Governor, a Greek-American woman with the difficult-to-pronounce name of Eleni Kounalakis.

Kounalakis is as hardcore Democrat with ties to Obama and the whole Democrat machinery. She’s tight with Newsom and Bass and the others in the gang of thieves. She served as ambassador to Hungary under Obama before hitching her wagon to the Newsom gravy train. Last month, she announced—to no one’s particular surprise—that she was running to replace her old boss in Sacramento. That’s sort of how California politics works. Everyone expected her to run.

Kounalakis checks an important box: she’s a woman. She also has a notable first to her name: she was the first female Lt. Governor in California history. She’s strongly ethnic as a Greek-American, but I’m not sure how that works in the Democrat racial hierarchies. Here are the two besties.

Governor of California is a plum job with a ton of grift potential. A lot of Democrats have declared similar intentions to seek the office. California is de facto a one-party state, sort of like Red China, so it doesn’t matter if Republicans run or not. Democrats get everything. So as the primary ballot is filling up with lots of old and new Democrat names, Kounalakis is clearly the front runner.

California politics are nutty. They elect communists, they make absurd laws, and they tax the population for sport. They pass laws making the weirdest things legal: you can shoplift, defecate in public, and shoot up drugs openly. Just don’t use a plastic straw.

Right now, California’s own native daughter, Kamala Harris, is considering her own political future. In between bags of Doritos, she’s becoming increasingly unburdened by what has been. According to former Democrat fundraiser Lindy Li—and substantiated by other anecdotal voices—Harris is contemplating re-entering the world of politics. She is looking at two options. Her intentions are either to run to be California governor in 2026 or to take another shot at running for the White House in 2028, you know, because her first campaign was such a blazing success.

This would mark Kamala’s third try to get into the White House but, ironically, it would be the first time she had to get primary votes. In 2020, she dropped out before she even started because she was that unpopular. Even Beto O’Rourke who is an admitted “furry” (a kink fetish) did better than she did. And as you remember, in 2024, the Democrats just handed her Joe’s delegates and his war chest on a silver platter as they kicked Joe to the curb. I don’t think she’ll get an EZ-Pass ticket in 2028. She might have to run a primary.

Sacramento

So what if Kamala decides to run for Governor of California? It’s a big job with a lot of power and visibility (things she likes) and she may be able to delegate the actual grunt work of doing things to others (also things she likes). But there is an ethical dilemma, or there would be an ethical dilemma to a person who had ethics.

Eleni Kounalakis is one of Kamala Harris’s closest friends. Harris does not have many friends. She barely has a family; rumors are that her husband wants a divorce and her children are not her children at all, they’re his kids by a previous marriage who didn’t even meet her till they were in high school. So you would think that a normal person in Harris’s social position would value a friend like Kounalakis.

And Eleni Kounalakis has always been there for Kamala Harris.

Just this summer, Kounalakis slobbered all over Harris at the Democrat National Convention (DNC) about how much she just loved and supported Harris. In October 2024, Kounalakis wrote a passionate letter to Greek-Americans, urging them to vote for Harris for President. Kounalakis called Kamala Harris “kind and friendly,” which sort of makes me wonder if they ever met. But there are tons of photos online showing the two young female politicos in their native habitat in California. While Harris was busy shoveling billions into the pockets of Hollywood celebrities to get them to stand on stage with her, it was people like Kounalakis who were raising the millions that Kamala put in celebrity’s pockets.

Kamala has said she would announce her plans at the end of this summer. If Kamala decides to go for the Governor’s office in Sacramento, she likely would get the nomination. In fact, Eleni Kounalakis might be forced to drop out. Speculation is Kounalakis might go for some lesser office, like state treasurer, so she could serve Kamala in her campaign. If history is any indicator, Eleni Kounalakis would be a good little Kamala cheerleader and champion fundraiser, while Kamala swoops in and steals her dreams.

For most people, this would pose ethical challenges. Kounalakis is in the natural position to take her shot. It’s her turn. Kounalakis is every bit as qualified as Harris and far more likeable. But Kamala could rob of her of her shot at the mansion in Sacramento. So does Kamala’s close warm personal relationship with Eleni Kounalakis play a role in whether or not Kamala runs in California?

• Some say that if Harris wanted to be governor, Kounalakis would obediently drop out of the race and start fundraising for Kamala and support her run

• A few say that Kamala would weigh friendship against ambition and might decide to run for President and let her BFF take Sacramento—in other words, this might push Kamala away from Sacramento and toward D.C.

• Others think this whole mess is just another Democrat psychodrama

• And wouldn’t it be funny if Harris caused Kounalakis to drop out of the Governor’s race and then Harris lost to a Republican?

The Fires of Change

The fires in Los Angeles changed everything. And right now as domestic terrorists are torching Teslas, this is changing things, too. Teslas are by and large owned and driven by Democrats, many of whom reside in freeway-happy California. At some point, it is just going to get to be too hard to be a Democrat in California. I mean, first they burn down your house, then they bomb your car. And meanwhile, you can’t legally get the half-naked drug addict who sleeps on your porch off your property—and you don’t dare leave the house because he might decide to “squat” and the California law will declare him the owner of your house.

There are rumblings that the tide is turning. People are fed up with the rampant drug abuse, out of control homelessness, crazy spending, exorbitant taxes, excessive regulations, and urban destruction that Newsom and his Democrat flying monkeys have unleashed. Mayor Karen Bass is being rightly castigated as inept and perhaps even criminal in how she ran the city.

Here's an interesting factoid. Karen Bass used to be in the House of Representatives and she was very close and chummy with Joe Biden. In fact, when Joe Biden was searching to find his “Black woman” vice president, Bass’s name came up on the short list. Bass, as we know, is a communist, a terrorist, and I believe is culpable for the Los Angeles fires, so it’s no wonder Biden wanted her in office.

In addition to Karen Bass being a buddy of Joe Biden, they were both very tight with South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn. Clyburn served for a while as the House Majority Whip, the job that fictional eventually-President Frank Underwood held at the start of the series House of Cards. Clyburn, like his fictional counterpart played by Kevin Spacey, was very good at his job. A whip’s main task is to get votes, by persuasion, negotiation, fear tactics, horse trading, arm wrestling, or any combination of those things. When things are going good, a whip can deliver the necessary votes to the party. In some cases, the best the whip can do is predict the loss so the party is not caught with its pants down. The main job of the whip is to push through as much of the party’s program as possible. In other words, when it came to votes, Clyburn was an excellent rain-maker.

In the 2020 election, Biden’s campaign was doing a Titanic-like plunge. He lost easy primaries. He was viewed as racist, old, out of touch. Bernie looked like he had the campaign in the bag, while Buttigieg emerged as a rising star and, big surprise, Liz Warren was getting votes too. Biden absolutely would have lost the primary and probably dropped out—he had no hope of winning—until Clyburn “whipped the vote” in South Carolina. His endorsements and campaigning and no doubt arm twisting gave Biden the win in South Carolina and the rest is history. Tragic, sad history.

But if you want to know how we got in this mess in this country we’re in today, here’s the short answer: Jim Clyburn.

Clyburn, who at 84 is older than Joe Biden and Keith Richards, pushed Biden for a Black female Vice President, but the official story is that Clyburn did not name names. There were several in Black women contention, including terrorist Karen Bass and grifter Stacey Abrams. Clyburn knew and liked Kamala Harris, but he said that he left the final choice to Biden.

I wonder if that was true, since Biden did not like Harris—she practically called him a racist in one of the first primary debates—but he picked her. I suspect Clyburn may have used some of his whip-like persuasion to put Kamala in the second chair. But then again, maybe Biden picked Harris because all of Biden’s instincts are wrong. At any rate, Clyburn applauded the choice and, in 2024, when Biden was effectively disposed of, Clyburn vehemently and psychotically endorsed Harris for President. He even predicted in grandiose fashion that she would win.

Of course, Clyburn is a very old man, and his former skills as whip may be a thing of the past. Maybe he was only saying what you’re supposed to say. But no matter how you slice it, Harris and Clyburn were buddies. Thick as thieves, with the emphasis on the thieves. Now into his 17^th term (he’s been in office since 1992), Clyburn is no longer whip but he is in a position to use his political clout to help move Kamala’s career.

This is weird, since it demonstrates the incredible power of older Black men in advancing the sad and ineffectual career of Kamala Harris. Her first mentor was California king maker Willie Brown, with whom she had a romantic relationship. That was back when Kamala Harris was quite a looker.

You Can’t Do This

In 2020, Kamala’s former married boyfriend Willie Brown was asked to weigh in on Kamala’s run for Vice President. Clyburn was cheering her on, but Brown gave her the opposite advice. Ex-boyfriends tend to be more honest than politicians with a party agenda to advance.

On the surface, what Willie Brown said was that the Vice Presidential job was a pathway to nowhere. He called the job a dead end and he knew Harris had no desire to be Vice President, she wanted the Oval Office. He told her to pass. He thought she’d do better as Attorney General or some other cabinet position until she was in a better position to run for the job she really wanted, namely the White House.

Off the record, online sources had also said that Brown told Harris not to go for the Vice President job because she would not be good at it. That story is apocryphal but accurate. All Harris managed to do as Vice President was show us how unpresidential she is. Plus it sure fueled a lot of rumors that she might well be an alcoholic.

Back to California

This summer of 2025, we’ll find out if Harris is going to run for governor of California or President of the United States. I have heard Californians say she would likely win the Governor’s race in California because she is so well known. I am a contrarian. I think the fires have changed not just the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, I think they’ve changed the political landscape as well. I am not sure all of those people who lost their houses when the fire hydrants had no water and a DEI fire chief announced she wasn’t carrying anyone out of a fire (it was your fault if you got yourself into that position) may have caused people to wonder if the Democrats are really that great. Here are some stats from the Golden State that argue against the incumbent powers:

• 28% of the homeless population in America is in California

• 9% of Californians meet the criteria to be diagnosed with a substance use disorder

• Of the Californians with a substance use disorder, only 10% get any sort of treatment

• California has more violent crimes than any other state, but they are only 16^th when you factor in their population

• Los Angeles has an unemployment rate of 5.7% and parts of California have unemployment as high as 18%. Unemployment rates are rising there

• California has state income tax which can be as high as 12.3% (it varies, that’s the top tier). This is in addition to federal taxes

• The San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County is known as “Porn Valley” because porn production is a major industry. We all know what nice people the porn industry attracts

• Gavin Newsom in 2022 signed a law that made it illegal to arrest a person “loitering for prostitution” in California. Hookers can hang out wherever they want and there is nothing you can do about it

• Public defecation is such a problem in San Francisco that the city published “poop maps” to show people on a day by day basis where they will encounter human feces on public streets. In 2024, there were 34,609 official reports made of public defecation in that city alone

• Shoplifting up to $950 worth of items during daylight hours is considered a misdemeanor and typically punished—if it is punished at all—by probation. Ironically, sometimes people convicted of stealing more than $950 are fined $1000. The Hoover Institution says that thanks to Gavin Newsom’s 2021 bill, “shoplifting in California is de facto legal.” We all know how great shoplifting is for small business

These are all the results of Democrat policies since Democrats have run California for years. They’ve run the state in the ground. But at some point, people are going to get tired of the theft, the violence, the drugs, the homelessness, the needles on the street, and, yes, the poop. So it may be that California pushes back and doesn’t want Harris. Or Kounalakis. Or any Democrat.

As for Harris winning a federal election—that’s a Polymarket bet I’d take for the loss.