Your correspondent of the weekly West Coast, Messed Coast™ knows it's not very nice to take glee in the panic of others, but when it comes to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), ladies and gentlemen, may I please indulge in a little schadenfreude in my cup? Strong and black. No leche.

If you've read this column for more than that cup of coffee, you know me for following the homeless issue, the court cases, and, for a time, a part of an organization ministering to homeless people and currently feeding homeless people. I'm no dilettante dropping anchor on a juicy story of the moment. For me, this is a big deal as a human. I approach it with clear eyes and without saccharine — unless there's a baby or dog involved.

I'll get to my abject glee in a moment, but first, let me give you an idea of what else I'm covering today in your West Coast, Messed Coast™ report.

A Portland city councilor is under fire for literally saying that he hates police, and it's causing a stir in that once fine little city in Oregon. Before you dismiss this by saying Tell me something I don't know, Victoria, give me a chance to spill it. 

AI nuttery has taken hold in California.

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As threatened, Paramount exits the Golden State. 

And for those who can't wait for California to drop off the rest of the continent, I have news.

Pattern recognition

California Democrats pulled up the ladder to prevent the likes of Nick Shirley and local reporters like JJ Smith, Amy Reichert, and many others from finding out where millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars were fraudulently spent. 

In my story, Karen Bass Feels Heat From Feds Over Millions in Stolen and Laundered ‘Homeless’ Funds, we learned that Bill Essayli, who's supposed to be the U.S. attorney in Central California (LA area) but isn't because John Thune can't do his job, this week announced the arrests and indictments of four individuals who had stolen millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars. They were supposed to house and help the homeless, but they helped themselves instead.

The arrests bespeak a Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority that was so poorly run, perhaps intentionally so, that there was little to no oversight on who was receiving tax dollars. Indeed, one of those arrested was easily bribed and corrupted by one of the recipients, who turned into an informant on at least one other person, and perhaps everyone. The feds don't admit that last informant part, but you can look it up at Duh dot com. 

Days before this caper was laid bare, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — who had near-total control over LAHSA, though it is a countywide program — quit the commission. That, as the kids say, is suss. And it certainly is. 

After the indictments were announced and after the U.S. House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Authority operators to please come to Washington to have a little chat — under oath — the homeless authority announced it no longer wanted to receive federal funding and, in fact, plans to get out of the homeless business entirely.

Bass and the people in Los Angeles who have run this agency into the ground after bilking taxpayers for years are getting out of the homeless business. 

The California Post reports, "LAHSA will not seek to retain responsibility for the annual application for federal homelessness funding, the Homeless Management Information System, the annual point-in-time count or the coordinated-entry system."

The same federal funding that came from your pockets and mine. The same federal funding lost after these alleged California homeless advocates threw piles of cash in front of an industrial fan and pointed it in the general direction of people who deserve to be in prison. 

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After they and their friends set up "nonprofits" and NGOs, that is. I'll bet I'm right.

Steve Hilton, a Republican who wants to be California's governor, says I'm right. 

It's time to redouble investigative efforts and start cleaning out some federal prison cells. 

Ronald Reagan said, "Don't be afraid to see what you see." 

You see it, don't you? 

Forget it, Jake. It's Portland.

Sure, the city continues its death spiral, criminals run the streets with impunity, and one of the two Fortune 500 companies left in Oregon has just been taken off Standard and Poor's list of America's top 100 companies. "Just Do It" just got up and left the list. 

The issue roiling some in Portland, however, is the fact that the cop union just called for a city councilman to resign not just because he's a commie and Antifa, or at least Antifa adjacent, but because he's expressed multiple times in the past and shown in his present decision-making job that he has "pure hatred for the Portland Police." His words. 

In addition, Portland City Councilor Mitch Green, elected in 2024 and sworn in in 2025, said to mobs during the 2020 riots and protests since then and in tweets that Portland Police are "absolute monsters," "bastards," and "infamously cowardly," and that they are somehow incompatible with a peaceful society. 

He swears he doesn't feel that way now. Sure, bud. 

We're pretty sure that cops on the job feel that not only can he eff off, but he can eff all the way off for his comments on policing during the storied Summer of Love. Reminder: Portland let off 90% of the mob, Antifa, and assorted violent anarchists arrested during the year of riots.

For his part, Police Chief "Baghdad" Bob Day tried, as he always does, to smooth things over for violent Antifa. He sent out a statement with his usual both-sides-isms — but actually gave the PO'ed cops a little support. He fell short, of course, of calling for the resignation of the guy who wants to get rid of police and who currently helps determine the police budget. He refused to ratify for the City Council Delta Bravo that the words were "youthful indiscretions." 

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Chief Day noted that "words cause harm" and that we'd like a "city with no crime, no violence and social systems capable of meeting every person's needs before they reach a crisis. But that is not the city—or a world—we live in." He continued, "[W]e cannot pretend these past statements don't damage trust. And I will not ask the men and women of this Bureau to pretend otherwise."

That's as good as you're gonna get from this guy. Take it to the feel-good bank. 

AI info op is 'a Joke'

Years and years ago, I read one of the most interesting and, as a reporter, helpful books on the history of solid-state technology and what it has meant for advancing freedom in the world. Well, that's what I read into Microcosm, anyway. It was written by George Gilder. I was immediately besotted. In fact, I think I'll go back and re-read it. 

Information technology is California's past, present, and future, and the Golden State leftists are doing all they can to destroy it. Oh, yes, they are. 

The futurist and tech aficionado, whose futurist predictions are based on study and intellect, has nailed it time and again. Gilder's most important book used to be Wealth and Poverty, but people are rediscovering his 1981 book, Gaming AI: Why AI Can't Think but Can Transform Jobs.

Townhall colleague and Salem podcast host Jerry Bower got a chance to interview Gilder and asked him about this current we're-all-gonna-die chatter from leftists hoping to capture the midterm elections.

"I think it's really a joke. I mean, I think people should be laughing at these guys," Gilder told Bower.  

In comments that appeared to address Anthropic's IPO as the trillion-dollar outfit appears to ratify the doomsaying of a former employee, Gilder marveled. "Imagine you're in a company and you produce some product that you don't understand and you can't control. You don't have a product, fella," he said. 

You don't go to the government to take over your company in order to preserve this destructive … product that you don't really understand. This is a really bizarre kind of moment. It's software, and we're in a revolution of software that greatly improves the IO of all computers, makes search engines much more efficient, and presuming that at some point, they can overcome the need to use a random number generator to simulate human creativity. 

I went over the information operation the left is running against AI itself and the data centers needed to power the most important technology since the internet this week on the Adult in the Room Podcast. The players, the groups, the info. 

There's enough to worry about with artificial intelligence without having to make up stuff. While you're at it, read this, too: Here's the Big Reason Why Data Center Derangement Syndrome Has Just Taken Center Stage for Democrats.

California is #1 … in poverty

California is worst in poverty, largely because of its high taxes, regulations, and energy costs, and opening taxpayers' wallets to non citizens. But in the rest of the country, the poverty rate has hit an all-time low.

The Census Bureau has released the numbers, and the Trump Administration now touts the highest household income in U.S. history and the lowest poverty rate on record.

You're doing it wrong, Gavin.

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They haven't ruined everything — yet

We know some of you have been waiting for California to drop into the ocean. And to some extent, thanks to the confluence of high tides, El Niño, and a hurricane in the Pacific, it's happening. 

They will rebuild. If they're allowed to.

But this ain't looking good. 

Thanks to my friend JVD for this one.