Let’s just get it out of the way early, shall we? We’re all racists. Welcome to the West Coast, Messed Coast™ report, where today we discover that open-air drug markets on the streets of Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, and L.A. are a figment of our imagination and simply remarking on their existence is racist — so shaddup, already!
Besides our new feature, “This Week in Racism,” which I just made up, this week’s West Coast, Messed Coast™ report includes Gavin Newsom teeing up Geriatric Joe, Dianne Feinstein getting a pass, Christians winning one in court, the Mayor of Antifastan bailing while Portland is in a public safety “crisis,” and — get the popcorn — environmentalists being forced to decide what they want: wind mills, electric cars, or iPhones. It’s quite a dilemma on the West Coast, Messed Coast™, so let’s do this thing.
This week in racism
In Seattle, a so-called “homeless” advocate — a person who advocates for homelessness — claims that anyone discussing the open-air drug markets on the streets of the city, especially in the International District where many of them are, is guilty of racism.
KTTH radio colleague Jason Rantz reports the advocate condemned the term “open-air” because it evokes “Orientalism, a Western way of stereotyping and exoticizing peoples and cultures of Asia…”
You can't make this up: saying "open-air drug market" is now racist (a form of "Orientalism") because… why not? https://t.co/aV7nAx5l8K
— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) September 12, 2023
Here’s an idea: let’s wipe out open-air drug markets so we don’t have to talk about them. Sheesh.
Open Air Meth Buses
Recently, I wrote about the University of Washington study of air and surface samples on the Pacific Northwest’s most concerning transit lines. The study concluded that meth was in the air on 100% of the buses and trains it studied and fentanyl was a growing problem. That said, the researchers reported that no one should be concerned because secondhand smoke and hard drugs on surfaces and in the air are no big deal. So don’t be worried, Mr., Mrs., Mx, Ms. Commuter.
But the researchers left out one big conclusion, as it turns out, one that I failed to bring up. This omitted item was noted by a board-certified psychiatrist and reader of the West Coast, Messed Coast™ report who wrote:
[…] I say this with tremendous respect, you asked the wrong question. The real question is how much does the use of methamphetamine and synthetic cannabinoids on public transportation increase the risk of assault? What percentage of assaults on public transportation in the Pacific Northwest cities, starting with SF in the South, involve people high on psychostimulants or driven to agitated behaviors by high THC concentration marijuana (the synthetic cannabinoids count as psychostimulants)?
That’s the public health question neatly sidestepped by U of Washington here.
Excellent point. And thank you for writing in.
Don’t look now, but there’s a —
Public Safety Crisis in Portland
This week, the mayor of Antifastan, Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler, announced that the hunt was on to find his replacement because he’s outta there when his term ends at the end of 2024.
As I opined this week, “Wheeler’s grasp of common sense became untethered soon after his election in 2016. He handed over con of the ‘Portanic’ to his left flank, and never looked back to see the flotsam and jetsam left in [his] wake. Now that he’s helped destroy his city, he’s leaving.”
Indeed, the Manhattan Institute issued a study this week, which concluded that Portland suffers from a “public safety crisis” exemplified by record-high homicide and shooting cases, property crimes run amok, and “public disorder, in the form of camping and public drug use, [which] is rampant.”
Wheeler came in as a moderate. This moderate, it turns out, failed to bring a core set of beliefs about good governance. He capitulated early to the mob and let them destroy my hometown. Truth is, the next mayor will probably be worse, as hard as that may be to believe.
Related: West Coast, Messed Coast™ The Lawless Chickens Come Home to Roost Edition
And the businesses just keep on closing on his watch.
Gavin Watch
Taxes: The California legislative session ended in the wee hours of the morning on Friday, and now Governor Newsom has until Oct. 14 to sign or veto them. Among the tax increases he’ll be asked to pass is an 11% tax on guns and ammo. Punishing gun owners is a mainstay of the talentless bunch in the Democrat supermajority. I’ll game out the rest for you. The estimated $160 million will be given to friendly NGOs that will do the state’s bidding with an anti-gun propaganda campaign. It will become part of the forever budget and will be considered a cut when or if anyone ever wants to get rid of a duplicative program. You’re welcome.
This is yet another argument against a full-time legislature.
Newsom said many words on Chuck Todd’s last “Meet the Press” show, which many took as a cue that he will make a wonderful president as long as he keeps sounding sane and doesn’t say out loud what he’s been doing during his tenure as governor, such as his histrionic and lawless campaign against churches, parental rights, higher taxation, destructive regulation, and stealing personal freedoms.
Newsom went after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, was nicer to former President Trump, and refused to concede that Geriatric Joe has lost some off his fastball. To the contrary, he said Biden has conducted a “master class” during his presidency. “And I mean it. I mean, master class in terms of delivering results,” he told a slack-jawed Todd.
If by “results” he means spending profligately, impoverishing Americans, opening the borders and making Americans pay for the newcomers, entering wars for untold reasons, and giving billions in payoffs to corruptocrats and terrorists, then he’s doing a splendid job.
As if that dumb statement wasn’t disqualifying enough by itself, Newsom plowed on in a disquieting give-and-take with Todd on the addled Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Todd: The senior senator here has – her daughter apparently has power of attorney. She as an elected official has power of attorney over 40 million people’s representation in Washington D.C. Why should she still be serving as a senator?
Newsom: Well, I leave it to her. […] I’ve known Dianne Feinstein since I was a kid.
Todd: She’s more like family to you?
Newsom: Yes. So I’m the last person to ask –
Todd: Is it sad to watch?
Newsom: Yeah.
Todd: Look, this is somebody whose obituary – whose legacy is – I fear people are going to forget because of what we’re watching toward the end. [emphasis added]
[…]
Todd: Is it fair – do you feel as if the staff is fulfilling, can do the duties?
Newsom: Yes. I don’t think it, I know it. We’re working extraordinarily closely together –
Todd: You don’t feel as if the state’s losing out by not having –
Newsom: No.
[emphasis added]
Not that we’d be excited about Newsom naming a replacement for Feinstein — hello, radicals Scott Weiner, Katie Porter, or Xavier Beccera — but Gov. Autocrat, Californians did not elect her staff.
In a more disqualifying admission, Newsom told of a conversation “not that long ago” with Feinstein during which she told him what he was doing wrong. Bookmark this quote:
I mean, it wasn’t that long ago where she would call me up, read me the riot act on issues related to forest management, vegetation management, what we’re doing in the central valley on drought and water issues. Again, that wasn’t the black-and-white movie days. That was not too long ago. Her staff is still extraordinarily active and we wish her only the best. Her term expires, she’s not running for re-election. [emphasis added]
Newsom will regret those words because they’re exactly what I’ve been telling you in the West Coast, Messed Coast™ reports since its inception. Newsom’s been HORRIBLE on water and fire fuel management, not to mention public safety. A flood of insurance companies have fled the state because of its inaction on these issues. It doesn’t get more basic than this stuff. He talks pretty and governs horribly.
Windmills of the Sea
What a dilemma for Oregon’s radical environmentalists. The tree-sitters, spikers, spotted owl liars, timber industry killers, and firebombers have been at the lunatic fringe of the war on the internal combustion engine and now agitate for more electric cars. Through the years, they touted peak oil lies and garbage island, and demanded that no, absolutely no oil drilling should ever take place off the Oregon coast. They don’t even want oil products to be transported through Oregon. They’ve sabotaged efforts to allow an LNG facility to send natural gas elsewhere and sabotaged train tracks to stop trains from moving coal to ships to send to Asia.
Now, nearly the entire Oregon congressional delegation, led by Sen. Ron Wyden, is touting 219,568 acres of whale-murdering windmills —18 to 32 miles off the Oregon coast. PJ Media colleague Lincoln Brown reports the same plan is now being touted in California.
Delicious Environy
On an environmentalist’s hierarchy of needs, iPhones, private jets, and electric cars trump bicycles. So it is worth watching the paper, rock, scissors gesticulations that are sure to come after the world’s largest lithium deposit was discovered — in Oregon and Nevada, near “ancient Native American” land.
America's biggest lithium jackpot found in ancient supervolcano https://t.co/uoVgXeXM4X // OREGON #PNW Located in Ancient Native American Land.#Dirty #green #energy ☠️
— FINA (@F_i_n_a_F_i_n_a) September 11, 2023
Lithium is an essential metal found in the very electronics on which you’re reading this story and in every battery used to power electric cars.
Get the popcorn.
W for the Good Guys
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) got a big win at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against the San Jose School District.
The San Jose District kicked out FCA because it required participants to affirm a statement of faith that included that marriage is between a man and a woman like the Bible says, and that you should keep your junk in your pants until you’re married, which is also in the Bible.
The Becket Fund picks up the narrative of its winning case.
[…] when a teacher within the district singled out FCA’s religious beliefs for ridicule, goaded students into protesting and harassing the club, and ultimately had the district kick the club off campus, FCA and its student leaders were shocked and hurt. After district officials refused to reinstate the club, FCA and its student leaders asked federal courts to permit the students to reestablish their longstanding FCA student clubs and protect their members from further harassment and discrimination.
The 9th Circuit, in an en banc hearing, ruled that the district violated the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion when it revoked the FCA club status on campus.
Finally, mind your Ps and pronouns in Oregon schools.
I don’t understand how teachers are now doing this. Private convos with kids about sexuality? Keeping things secret from
Parents? This came from a
Band teacher in Oregon. Where’s the checkbox for contact my parents lawyer? pic.twitter.com/QPwoXaeYSI— Nicole 𝔻e Graff (@MamaNikki2007) September 12, 2023
To the left, the facts and opinions just delivered in this story shouldn’t be allowed. Indeed, Big Tech, at the behest of Democrats, has been preventing you from seeing our brand of opinion journalism for years now. They’re trying to starve us into compliance — or non-existence. PJ Media has been censored, disappeared, thrashed, and throttled by social media companies at the behest of political Leftists. It’s wrong and un-American.
That’s where you come in. Are you sick of this yet?
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