Welcome to the West Coast, Messed Coast™ report, where your humble scribe culls through the best stories in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington to bring you only the essential highlights.
And there go the mask mandates. All three West Coast, Messed Coast governors have gazed into the Orb, seen images of pitchforks, tar, and feathers, and have concluded that the charade is over.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom will remove outdoor mask mandates on Monday.
He’s introduced a plan whose acronym will make any self-respecting news observer shudder at its gaslighting audacity. He calls it the “SMARTER” plan.
NEW: The next phase of California’s COVID-19 response is here.
The SMARTER Plan focuses on what works, based on lessons learned from the last 2 years –
Shots
Masks
Awareness
Readiness
Testing
Education
Rx treatments— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) February 17, 2022
Newsom declared that he was the first governor in the nation to have an “endemic” response. To which PolitiBunny had a reply.
DeSantis, Abbott, and Youngkin say hi … https://t.co/KcF5hgmSHs
— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) February 19, 2022
Quick question for the governor: is an endemic an emergency too?
Newsom’s lackey, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, has gazed into The Orb this week to discover that masks won’t be needed indoors on March 21. He made the announcement but did not bother to end his emergency powers, saying he needed to have an emergency declared to keep the federal grift going.
Vaccine passports are canceled in early March just in time for large events like the upcoming Paul McCartney concert and baseball when the players’ union beef is over.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, who’s never missed an opportunity to wield her power against the proletariat, looks to be the last governor standing when her mask edicts end on March 31. “On that date, local school districts will be able to make independent decisions about their own COVID-19 mitigation protocols,” reports a local news station. In other words, she has passed the fight with teachers’ unions on to every school district in the state. What a profile in courage.
Everything’s better in Oregon. Except prices. Schools. Overall health. Taxes.
Hey #Oregon – keep voting Democrat pic.twitter.com/Vk1D6BAjnU
— Hidden (@jaredhidden) February 19, 2022
In other news from the Woke West, I have the sad duty of informing you this week that we’ve all been racists without even knowing it. Luckily, the woke mob has made us aware, so I dolefully and dutifully bring you the news.
Remarkable: a sensible public health regulation has to be repealed simply because racism is so endemic in the police force that they can't be trusted to enforce the regulation fairly: https://t.co/BWSQSbmQf2 [corrected link]
— Alfie Kohn (@alfiekohn) February 19, 2022
This week we learned that bike helmets are white supremacist, racist items and the enforcement of laws requiring them are racist. But take heart, because there’s a huge upside to the governmental response to perceived racism. Wait for it.
This week the King County, Wash. (greater Seattle) health poobahs rescinded the laws requiring bicyclists in the state’s most populous county to wear helmets. The King County Board of Health voted 11-2 to get rid of the requirement because “BIPOC riders and riders experiencing homelessness … are bearing the brunt of disproportionate enforcement, citations and fees,” Board Chair Joe McDermott declaimed.
Encouraging people to use helmets and directing them to cheaper helmets is the new course of action. Of course, bike enthusiasts have agitated for years to deep-six the helmet law, but the health board needed a better reason than mere freedom to get rid of it. As we learned this week on the pages of the Washington Post, “freedom” is a white supremacist construct. Voila! Helmets are racist because black people and the homeless and others get ticketed at a greater rate to the proportion of ridership.
Sure it’s dumb, but here’s the upside: do you think we could get woke scolds all over the country to find inherent “racism” in other onerous and expensive regulations so they’d throw those out? Imagine if we could get them to end regulations after finding racism in building codes. Think about it. Find “racism” and get cheaper housing! They could do it to bring down the price of liquor and even reduce prosecutions of conservatives!
In these dystopian times, when leaders like Justin Trudeau inveigh against us for “tak[ing] up space” prompting him to ponder the question, “do we tolerate these people?” we need to take our wins where we can find them.
Washington state is mulling over the idea of establishing a separate Amber Alert system for “missing Indigenous people.” The proposed new alert, we’re told, “would become a part of the Endangered Missing Person Advisory plan and involve radio and television stations, cable and satellite systems, and social media platforms to enhance the public’s ability to assist in recovery efforts of missing Indigenous people,” you know, like the other alerts.
Even The New York Times knows there’s election chicanery. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof quit his gig at the Gray Lady, packed his carpet bag, and headed to Oregon, where he hasn’t lived in decades, to run for governor. Even the woke Leftist recognized that Oregon wouldn’t bother to double-check his residency status. But his lead opponent in the Democrat Party, the unfortunately named Tina Kotek, was not to be denied by some graying upstart who used to live in Oregon.
This week, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled the graying upstart may not run for governor.
Now, let’s go out to dinner!
Restaurant owners across Portland say if you go out to eat, expect a higher bill. That's because food prices spiked about 13% in the last year.https://t.co/e3VIJp0DqK
— KATU News (@KATUNews) February 19, 2022
‘Til next the West Coast, Messed Coast™ report, I bid you adieu.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member