West Coast, Messed Coast™: This Guy Could Be the Next Mayor of Oakland

Before we go all Beastmode, welcome to the weekly West Coast, Messed Coast™ report, where we bring you some of the highlights of what's going on in politics and culture in Oregon, Washington, and California.

This map doesn't get old. Look at all that red.

Speaking of which, there's an old saying in politics attributed to mass-murdering commie Joseph Stalin: It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes.

There should be a corollary:

The 'cure' is worse than...

California Governor Gavin Newsom likes to point to the fact that his state is the fifth largest economy in the world. There should be an asterisk on that claim, however. He should have said that his Third World utopia economy is doing well despite Governor Hair Gel.

Indeed, in his state of 22 million voters, 40 million people, and an untold number of illegal aliens with congressional representation, it takes weeks to count the votes because of the so-called "curing" process. The curing process allows political parties to take uncounted votes, go back to the voters who cast them, and "cure" them. That means if the date wasn't on them, the cast of flying monkeys from the Democrats (or Republicans) can convince the voters that they meant to include a date before Election Day, or that their signatures really do match up. It's a process for crazymaking and calling into question the security of the vote.

All votes must be "cured" by December 1, so that means there's more mischief afoot. Michelle Steel, who was considered the winner of the state's 45th Congressional District, "lost" the election to the loathsome Derek Tran by a treacling few votes. Democrats keep curing until they win.

Steel, a decent and upstanding woman, failed to consolidate the anti-crime zeitgeist that overwhelmed the state, and the leftist won. Goodbye, Orange County. Again.

Mike Cernovich called it.

She "lost" by 613 cured ballots. I'm not an election denier. I'm an election realist.

Labor intensive

Losing Oregon congressional Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whom President-Elect Donald Trump inexplicably named as his Labor secretary designate—what the hell?—was "swatted" like most other Trump appointees across the country on Tuesday night.

Someone called into the Clackamas County Sheriffs Office to report a pipe bomb in hopes that armed SWAT officers would show up to her house with guns drawn and cause her to get spooked, make a move, and get popped. That's how "swattings" are supposed to go, anyway.

I rooted for her against the Democrats, but Chavez-DeRemer's designation as Labor secretary is, as I said above, inexplicable.

It gets worse

As a one-term congresswoman, following a stint as a small town mayor, Chavez-DeRemer supported the so-called Pro Act, which was the Californication of the independent contractor rules. Anyone who believes in freedom dismissed this act as lunacy, especially when the California Democrat legislators passed its destructive precursor, AB 5.

Democrat Luddites, afraid they couldn't control the gig economy, voted to make employees out of freelancers in nearly every space from Uber to independent truckers, and, of course, made it much easier to establish unions. Naturally, Newsom signed this monstrous gift to labor unions.

A group of lawyers issued a list of complaints about AB 5:

Ryan: “I am the owner of a pediatric therapy company. We provide work to approximately 40 ICs who want to see a few clients in addition to their full time jobs. This law would force me to let go of all 40 ICs as I cannot afford to pay them.”
Jan: “I’m an older woman with two teaching credentials living in a small county who cannot find employment outside of independent contractor online teaching jobs. One company has already announced they will no longer contract with California teachers. I care for a disabled husband. I will lose my home if I cannot work for those companies.”
Hope: “This bill will devastate the services the Deaf community receive. Almost all of the American Sign Language Interpreters that work in the community are Independent Contractors. We get the bulk of our work through agencies that work like clearinghouses that send out the work. We set our pay and take the work if we want or don’t want.”
Donna: “I am a bandleader and work with 20 different musicians through the course of the year. Some I will use once some 15-20 times. The costs of making them employees, work comp, payroll costs etc. will put me out of business.”

It was a unmitigated disaster. California had to "clarify" the bill and stop the bleeding, but the woman who wrote it, a big union leader, let the cat out of the bag.

It was so disastrous that Democrats and wild-eyed unionists wanted to take it nationwide. Nationally, the Pro Act would eventually extinguish "right to work" states.

How would you like this guy repping every new ~~extortion racket~~ union?

Me neither.

I know President Trump is courting union members, but we don't need to curry favor with the godfathers.

Beastmode

Gavin Newsom wants Marshawn Lynch to run for mayor of Oakland.

Marshawn Lynch was part of the Seattle Seahawks' "Legion of Boom," leading the team to two big contests that shall not be named. Eventually, Lynch retired and went back home to Oakland.

The quiet and indefatigable NFL star un-retired when he discovered that his beloved Oakland Raiders would leave his hometown. He wanted to be on the last team before they left town. The MLB's A's followed soon after.

Now, Oakland has turned into a lawless, woke hellhole, where criminal gangs loot with impunity, people are afraid to walk the streets, and downtown is a "ghost town."

Voters just threw out the talentless, woke mayor and the Alameda County district attorney.

On their podcast, Newsom tried to get Lynch to consider running for mayor, and in later episodes he speaks of it as being a foregone conclusion.

In their podcast after the election, Lynch told Newsom that he knew Trump would win because he'd been listening to the people. That shows he has better instincts than the machine politician.

Legion of doom

Oregon's votes are counted, and Democrats have supermajorities in both houses. This is what mail-in balloting does to a state.

A missive from Oregon Catalyst tells the tale of a flurry of last-minute votes:

A surge of last minute votes for Democrat challenger and labor organizer Lesly Muñoz has worked to defeat incumbent State Representative Tracy Cramer. This secures the Democratic Party candidates at 60% vote control in both the Oregon State House and Oregon State Senate. At the much watched 60% vote margin it is a super-majority where it is not only a comfortable lead it is also the legal threshold to pass tax increases.

Speaking of tax increases

Oregon Democrats spent so much money doing things other than their core jobs that transportion has a more than billion dollar deficit. That means gas prices are going up by 35 cents a gallon.

Things are much worse in California and Washington, where gas prices are also going higher due to their cimate plans. Republicans wanted Californians to remember who stuck it to them, and took out full-page ads to remind them.

Kamalala-Shanahan

Kamala and friends decided that the nation's voters didn't go for her because they're, of course, anti-black, anti-Indian, and anti-woman.

Kamala Harris is considering a run for governor, as I've mentioned, but now we have word that Nicole Shanahan, RFK's campaign benefactor who threw in with Trump and stumped for him all over the country, is considering a run for California governor. I first heard word of that on the All-In Podcast

I'd like to see that contest.

Question:

Does this sound like murder for hire?

From our Townhall colleague Sarah Arnold on the unholy alliance between baby killers at Planned Parenthood and UCSD:

According to shocking emails, Planned Parenthood negotiated terms concerning the donation of aborted fetuses for medical research regarding a “research plan” submitted to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Ethics Review Board. In 2018, the so-called “plan” was approved, noting that scientists requested up to 2,500 fetuses that were aborted at the six-month gestation period.
[...] “These documents show that Planned Parenthood is supplying healthy babies who are old enough to survive outside the womb from late-term abortions to the University of California’s royalty-generating experiments,” pro-life activist David Daleiden told the New York Post.

David Daleiden strikes again. Let's hope that Rob Bonta, the current attorney general of California, doesn't take a hint and raid and arrest him like Kamala did.

Washington State thought police

This says it all. The governor-elect of Washington plans to weaponize his government against all the good ideas in the white paper put out every election year by the Heritage Foundation.

Having demonized the "Project 2025" ideas, Bob Ferguson now hopes to weaponize his government against anyone who holds those thoughts.

Watch my interview with the Heritage Foundation and my PJ Media colleague Kevin Downey, Jr. on the project .

They haven't ruined everything yet