Haley Strack

Excited to join @christopherrufo and @CityJournal's new California team to (hopefully) answer a question the magazine posed years ago: Can California be golden again? Looking forward to uncovering waste, fraud, and abuse in my home state.

Gavin Newsom used California’s youth mental-health crisis to build a $15+ billion therapeutic bureaucracy rooted in the idea that “white supremacy” was driving children’s distress, while taxpayers nationwide help fund it. In 2021, Newsom launched the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI), the $4.7 billion centerpiece of his Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health. It was sold as a response to “severe outcomes”: rising hospitalizations for self-harm and suicidality among children. But he handed the reins to progressive activists, who identified “racism” and “white supremacy” as root causes of mental illness and substance abuse. The result was a statewide equity agenda centered on “prevention”: screening, data collection, and the medicalization of children who were not driving the crisis. California is now turning K–12 schools into mental-health service sites. Students can receive therapy or psychiatric diagnoses during school hours, billed to insurance. Normal school anxiety is now “medically necessary” for services. Parents may not even know. A new law allows “mature” minors 12 and older to consent to treatment, and state guidance says “parents are not to be contacted.” CYBHI funds mental-health screening programs for toddlers and social-emotional learning during class time with an “explicit equity and social justice lens.” It also funds “community-defined evidence practices (CDEPs),” which made programs that introduce students to progressive activism and “gender-affirming” services eligible for public money. California spent $5 billion expanding Medi-Cal to cover social services like rent, groceries, and housing deposits, unlocking federal matching funds, so taxpayers nationwide help subsidize it. Not enough funding was reserved for treatment beds. So in 2024, Newsom returned to voters with Prop. 1, a $6.4 billion bond, but much of that money was directed to homeless housing under a Housing First model. California still lacks sufficient psychiatric treatment beds, and some children travel hundreds of miles to access care. Children like Jázmin Pellegrini cycled through 10 facilities on 40 occasions. She was placed in an unlocked facility instead of secure residential treatment, ran away, and was found dead on the streets of San Francisco soon after. Newsom invoked children like Jázmin to declare a youth mental-health crisis. They remain the most neglected by the system he built, while healthier children are turned into mental-health patients. Read my latest investigation for @CityJournal: city-journal.org/article/califo…

@RSuff23 @christopherrufo This completely misses the point. Other states updated their systems and had problems with the rollouts, sure. But those states didn't throw their hands up, scrap a system that was already built, and squander $450 million.

@christopherrufo Other states have implemented statewide 911 systems, and they also had outages and other problems after rollout. They also charged more to taxpayers than CA. But continue trashing California in a vacuum.

EXCLUSIVE: Gavin Newsom spent $450 million on a new 911 system. The initial rollout was such a disaster, state officials decided to scrap the program. Now, call centers are experiencing rolling blackouts—and are at risk of "catastrophic failure." city-journal.org/article/califo…

Another failed promise.

EXCLUSIVE: Gavin Newsom has granted nearly $1 billion to left-wing NGOs that have helped illegal aliens cross the border, organized anti-ICE street protests, and brought in undocumented migrants "living with HIV." The invasion was totally subsidized. city-journal.org/article/califo…

@RameshPonnuru @Rafa_Mangual @AprilPonnuru Thank God!!!!!

I rang the bell! My middle child Betsy and sweet wife @AprilPonnuru were there to celebrate with me.

They’re real!

This is insane, left-wing activists at the University of Wisconsin are calling for assassinations

RT @christopherrufo: BREAKING: Gavin Newsom’s office has confirmed that California is giving free sex-change surgeries to homeless illegal…

Truly so insane that if you point out D’s are doing this in polite company, you’re the one who sounds like you’re making up crazy fake attacks!

@AudreyFahlberg @JohnPuri2026 @NRO End of an era ❤️

Bittersweet news: Today was my last day at National Review. This job has been a blast and I feel incredibly lucky & grateful to have worked alongside so many brilliant colleagues. @NRO is a superb place to work, and I am incredibly proud to have called the place home. Have a couple more pieces in the hopper before I start a new reporting gig in May that I’ll announce soon. Until then, thanks for reading!

EXCLUSIVE: “Jacqueline” is a transgender migrant who lives in a California homeless shelter and told us the state gave him free breast implants. Now he’s waiting for “bottom surgery,” in which doctor will castrate him and create an artificial vagina—all funded by Gavin Newsom.

The AMA now disputes what they first told @NRO_ in February: that "surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood." Medical associations STILL can't agree on if premature mastectomies, bottom surgeries, etc., are bad for kids. Insane.

SCOOP: California is giving free sex-change procedures to homeless illegal aliens. Our team went into the shelters and discovered that trans migrants are coming into the state for hormones, breast implants, and "bottom surgeries"—all on the taxpayer dime. city-journal.org/article/homele…

By just about every measurement you can think of, California is dramatically underperforming and getting worse, particularly when you consider that the state has some advantages that every other state would envy, such as Silicon Valley, Hollywood, two of the country’s biggest ports, some of the world’s best farmland, near-ideal weather, major naval bases, etc. Eric Swalwell is 45 years old. He was elected to Congress at age 31, in a heavily Democratic district, after beating then-81-year-old Pete Stark, a 20-term incumbent. He ranks among the lightest of lightweights, a frequent guest on MSNBC/MSNOW, a man who seven years ago was dense enough to believe that Americans wanted him to be their next president, without the slightest micron of evidence. (He never polled above 1 percent in any national or state survey.)

"Probably an accident too"

Some personal news from Paola and me as we wrap up an incredible time in Rome, and embark on a new adventure in the USA! 🇺🇸

@PhilipWegmann @RCPolitics Just a guy who got into journalism because he likes to write. Excited to see what’s next :)

It is my last day at RealClearpolitics. I’ll start covering the White House for another outlet soon (so stay in touch), but I’ll always love the folks at @RCPolitics. Best job I’ve ever had.