Welcome to your West Coast, Messed Coast™ report, where this week your humble correspondent offers some advice for when Democrats pretend to give a rip about "affordability." Remind them that before the "excursion" in Iran temporarily raised gas prices, President Donald Trump's prices never reached the heights of the prices planned and in place for the poor saps living on the West Coast, Messed Coast™. Add in the cost of free body parts for illegal alien trans people, and whoa.
Eric Swalwell is now a swear word in California. Katie Porter has helped weaponize it. I've got more on that below.
American sailors, airmen, Delta operators, and Marines have acquitted themselves incredibly well during the "excursion" in and around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz and Venezuela, but there are some cracks showing in readiness. Stick around, and I'll explain.
There's lots going on, so let's get this West Coast, Messed Coast™ party started.
Che$ticles
Chris Rufo at City Journal this week detailed Gavin Newsom's free trans surgeries and drugs program for illegal aliens. It turns out that "affordability" concerns for American voters cease when illegal aliens want to change their original factory parts.
Rufo found that illegal aliens populate San Francisco homeless shelters and stay there for free while awaiting their doctor's appointments.
Lyca, who wore long hair and red lipstick, was candid about this arrangement. He confirmed that he was an illegal immigrant and that the shelter doesn’t ask questions about immigration status. “Tengo Medi-Cal,” he said, referring to the state health-care program, which, under Governor Gavin Newsom, began providing “full scope” coverage to illegal aliens, which includes transgender procedures, or “gender affirming care.” He said he was receiving cross-sex hormone therapy—and bore the physical signs of having done so.
Worse, "health care" for illegal aliens has increased Medi-Cal (Medicaid) spending from $3 billion to $11 billion annually, according to California State Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones. That is a near quadrupling of expenditures for taxpayers who foot the bill for sexually confused people coming from all over the world to get their chesticles, new "vaginas," and hormones. The Republican leader has warned Newsom that California's $12 billion deficit will go up if the state doesn't stop opening up state operating rooms to non-citizens.
Eye bleach alert
Remember this guy?
He was a Canadian shop teacher. I don't know what he's doing now, but if homeboy decided to go to California illegally, he could demand that Medi-Cal pay for the surgery to replace his balloons with whatever it is they make fake breasts out of these days. By the way, "Med-Cal" as used in the last sentence means you and me. We pay for this stuff. Medicaid is a federal program, so we get stuck with the bill. That's why Trump and company are cutting back on California's reimbursement program.
I asked Perplexity AI to give me a table chart on what Trump has done to reduce California's reimbursements.
Affordability? Gavin Newsom and his reckless ideologues don't give a flying flipping frittata about it. They'll promise to do better if you just vote Democrat in November, however. And in the meantime, they'll call Trump a big meanie for cutting off Medi-Cal expenditures for grandma and disabled people, whom Newsom cut off to accommodate trans illegal alien patient surgeries.
Anchors aweigh
If you've caught a glimpse of any of the videos put out by CENTCOM or the U.S. Navy in the Iran AOR, you can't help but get a tingle of American pride for how disciplined, competent, and deadly these young people are. And now they've successfully reopened the Strait of Hormuz.
Huzzah.
さぁ！アメリカの友よ！一緒に歌おう🇺🇸‼️
— 美香ちゃんⓇ (@mikazzz2024) April 2, 2026
【🇺🇸アメリカ軍歌🇺🇸】 Anchors Aweigh _ 錨を上げて pic.twitter.com/ldM9M40d0I
But let's talk about the adults who are letting these sailors down.
An acquaintance the other day was upset that her husband was going to be extended on a shipbuilding or repair job for at least another month on the West Coast, Messed Coast™. She was upset that there was so little predictability in this schedule.
In San Diego, the Union Tribune reports that the "USS Augusta, a nearly new Independence-class littoral combat ship, will undergo a $33.5 million overhaul at a San Diego shipyard." A "nearly new" ship needs that much work to bring it up to scratch? The ship has been homeported in San Diego since it was commissioned in 2023. It's never seen a major deployment.
And then, one of my favorite podcast guests, former CIA big shot Sam Faddis, is raising concerns about the USS Boise. He predicts someone will need to "lose their jobs" over the dysfunctional way repairs have been conducted on this nuclear sub.
Sam writes at his AND Magazine Substack:
It was docked ten years ago pending a regular overhaul. It has been out of service ever since. In 2024, the Navy awarded a $1.2 billion dollar contract for work on the Boise. Eight hundred million of that has already been spent on the boat. It is still not back in service. The overhaul is only 22% complete. The Navy believes it will cost $3 billion to finish the work.
And now the Navy has announced it is effectively giving up on the Boise. It will be inactivated. Every dollar spent on refurbishing it has been wasted.
President Trump has made shipbuilding a priority for the U.S. for both Navy and civilian uses. I asked Perplexity AI to make me a chart showing where U.S. Navy ship building and maintenance are performed in the U.S. Old hands will already know, but this is for the benefit of the newbies to the issue.
Congress is going to need to catch Trump's vision if we're expecting these warriors to have reliable vessels to kick someone's ass ala Maduro and the Ayatollah in a future conflict ... like Cuba.
When you've lost Nik Ritchie...
Former congressman and governor candidate Eric Swalwell was reportedly taken down by Katie Porter, who planted five female sexual assault victim depth charges in the political water table timed to implode his candidacy for California's top executive. When he went down, he was quickly abandoned by his political mentors, who rallied around the Tom "Ban ICE" Steyer bandwagon to stop the top polling Republicans in the race.
Swalwell was placed into the governor's race by Porter haters Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff to ruin the chances of the truly odious Porter.
I talked about this with Daniel Greenfield on Thursday's Adult in the Room livestream. Check it out for laughs and insight. But wait, there's more below.
In a New York Post story about a "bleary-eyed" Swalwell on vacation with the boys, complete with "yacht girls," this Instagram post drew my attention. It's from Nik Ritchie, who runs the blind item gossip website called "The Dirty."
Ritchie mocked Swalwell's 2022 antics while the rest of the country was still under COVID restrictions.
"Leave future California Governor @ericswalwell alone. He is a good guy 👍 (sarcasm) - SEPT 2022"
Make sure you read my story about how Pelosi ignored all common sense, FBI warnings, and pleas by Kevin McCarthy to rein in the sleazeball in this story: Check Nancy Pelosi's Back for Tire Marks Because Kevin McCarthy Just Pulled a Swalwell Hit and Run.
Corruption part ∞
The 65 Project and Norm Eisen acolytes just got California's Bar Association to disbar former Trump lawyer and constitutional law professor John Eastman. He wrote an advice memo to Trump, advice that Trump didn't use. His life was nearly destroyed over it.
You can't hate the left enough.
They haven't ruined everything — yet
Death Valley's spring blooms.
Death Valley's rare 'Super Bloom': a one-a-decade occurrencepic.twitter.com/7jVxtAWNzo
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 11, 2026
Did you realize that the Schumer Shutdown is still going on? As we attempt to bring down a would-be nuclear power that has killed Americans and attempted to kill President Trump twice, the Democrats refuse to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security. They want to disembowel the Great Big Beautiful Bill in exchange for their support.
No sale.
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