LA man gets 3 years in prison, $240,000 fine, for OC sober living kickback scheme

• March 22, 2025

A Hollywood Hills man was sentenced to three years and five months in federal prison on Friday, March 21 for paying illegal kickbacks for patient referrals to his Orange County addiction treatment facilities.

Casey Mahoney, 48, was convicted in Los Angeles federal court in September 2024 of one count of conspiracy, seven counts of illegal remunerations for patient referrals, and three counts of money laundering, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Along with the prison term, the DOJ said, U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton fined Mahoney $240,000.

Mahoney was found to have paid nearly $2.9 million in illegal kickbacks to so-called body brokers who referred patients to his Orange County addiction treatment facilities, Healing Path Detox and Get Real Recovery Inc.

Those body brokers in turn paid thousands of dollars in cash to patients, which some patients used to purchase drugs, in order to induce them to attend treatment at Mahoney’s facilities.

Evidence presented during the nine-day trial in downtown Los Angeles showed Mahoney concealed the illegal kickbacks by entering into sham contracts with the body brokers which purportedly required fixed payments and prohibited payments based on the volume or value of the patient referrals.

In reality, the DOJ said, Mahoney and the brokers negotiated payments based on the patients’ insurance reimbursements and the number of days Mahoney was able to bill for treatment. Mahoney also laundered the proceeds of the conspiracy through payments to the mother of one of the body brokers, which Mahoney falsely characterized as consulting fees, the jury found.

Dept. of Justice: Orange County is now nation’s center for addiction fraud

​ Orange County Register 

Wenyuan Wu: A timely proposal to defund Minority Serving Institutions

• March 22, 2025

In California, 167 colleges and universities are certified “Minority Serving Institutions (MSI),” a federal program that rewards schools that enroll certain percentages of minority students with “in-kind services, volunteerism, diverse hiring, grants and contacts.” This represents nearly a quarter of all higher education institutions in the Golden State. 

The category of MSI includes Asian American and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AAPISIs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), but not Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs).

To be a HSI, a status governed by Executive Order 13555, a school must be accredited and have at least 25% full-time enrollment of Hispanic undergraduate students. AAPISI was established by Executive Order 13515 for the purpose of increasing Asian-American participation in federally funded programs. 

MSIs enjoy a federally bestowed advantage over non-MSI schools for having achieved demographically significant student bodies, even though the qualifying number of minority students may have vastly different individual backgrounds. For instance, some may come from wealthy, new immigrant families while others come from poverty perpetuated generationally. 

Without capturing individual-level nuances, MSI programs are unfairly instituted based on crude race and ethnicity considerations. 

Of the 167 MSIs in California, many are public universities governed under Proposition 209, which bans racial preferences in public education. Notably, of the 23 California State University campuses, 21 are touted as HSIs. The University of California system celebrates five of its nine undergraduate campuses as HSI-designated. These taxpayer-funded institutions use the federal MSI designation to claim exemptions from Prop. 209. They should not be allowed to do so.

Leaders of the American Civil Rights (ACR) Project– Professor Gail Heriot who is also my colleague at the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, Mr. Peter Kirsanow who serves on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission alongside Professor Heriot, and Mr. Daniel Morenoff – are now challenging the constitutionality of MSI programs. 

In their letters to Congress, the trio addressed the U.S. House Budget Committee, House Committee on Education & Workforce and their Senate counterparts. The letters went in great detail to explain why these programs are “racially and ethnically discriminatory programs [that] shovel about a billion dollars annually,” of which Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) are “the largest and best funded.” 

In turn, the ACR Project asks Congress to repeal these unconstitutional programs and “replace [them] with increased funding for a program that subsidizes colleges and universities that serve low-income students, or with programming to support the needs of actual English-language learners.”

The letters pointed to new model legislation developed by the ACR Project: “Enforcing the Law on Colorblind Admissions–Congress can stop unconstitutional discrimination and fund better alternatives.” Anchored on a purpose to hold the federal government accountable in following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the model legislation contains four constitutional alternatives to MSI programs:

1. Abolish MSI Programs and Enhance the Pell Grant Program. 
2. Abolish MSI Programs and Replace Them with Grants for Higher-Education Students Learning English.
3. Replace MSI Programs with Block Grants to the States. 
4. Replace MSI Programs with Sunset Block Grants to the States. 

Such proposals to amend the Higher Education Act and fund programs based on either economic/linguistic or state/local needs are sensible.

Not only does the race/ethnicity-based requirement (i.e. having a student body that is at least 25% Hispanic) fail to satisfy the longstanding constitutional doctrine of strict scrutiny, MSI programs are also not narrowly tailored to right past wrongs. Nor are these programs a justifiable “supplement to help schools whose students are struggling with English as a second language.”

To make matters worse, the lure of more federal funding, contracts and other favors has created a counterproductive, anti-excellence incentives for many schools, such as the UC San Diego and the University of San Diego, to become obsessed with racial balancing at the expense of academic standards, as detailed in the letters. 

The “Defund MSI” proposal is a necessary initiative for devising public policies to incentivize both equal treatment and merit-based government assistance for higher education. It is about time that we seriously confront the poison of race/ethno-centric policies/thinking. You can contact your congressional representatives and alert them to this important initiative.

Wenyuan Wu is executive director of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation

​ Orange County Register 

Medicaid recipients struggle to find mental health care. Looming cuts could make it harder

• March 22, 2025

By Shalina Chatlani, Stateline.org

Charmeka Newton, a psychologist who has her own practice in Lansing, Michigan, is passionate about serving Black and Hispanic patients. They’re often looking for therapists who will understand how their race, ethnicity and culture may affect them, she said, and she helps provide that care.

Medicaid is a major source of health care for people of color. But Newton can only afford to see a small number of Medicaid patients, because the program pays her so much less than commercial insurance.

Republicans in Congress are aiming to make extensive cuts to Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program that covers a total of 72 million low-income people and people with disabilities, or 1 in 5 U.S. residents. If that happens, Newton and many other mental health providers worry that already-low Medicaid reimbursement rates will stagnate or even decline.

That would make it difficult for her to keep seeing Medicaid patients.

“Medicaid is probably one of the most challenging insurances to work with,” Newton told Stateline. “My biggest fear if cuts happen is that individuals won’t have access to providers that are able to help them.”

Already, there is a shortage of mental health care providers. About 122 million people, or about 35% of the U.S. population, are living in an area with a mental health care professional shortage, according to data from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. If Medicaid reimbursement rates go down and more providers refuse to see those patients, the shortage would get worse.

Nationwide, Medicaid covers nearly 1 in 3 working-age adults who live with mental illness, or about 15 million adults, according to health policy research organization KFF.

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, is looking for at least $880 billion in budget savings over the next decade, largely to pay for extensive tax cuts. A March 5 letter from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, confirmed that a cut of that size would have to come from either Medicaid or Medicare, the insurance program for older adults.

President Donald Trump has said that Medicare is off the table, so that leaves Medicaid.

Lawmakers are considering numerous options, including shrinking the federal government’s share of the cost of covering people who became newly eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. If that happens, states that opted to expand to cover those residents — adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level — would have to either increase their own spending or find savings elsewhere.

That could mean removing some people from Medicaid rolls, eliminating coverage for certain services or reducing reimbursement rates — any one of which could reduce Medicaid recipients’ access to mental health care, said Stephen Gillaspy, director of health policy and health care financing at the American Psychological Association.

“Those [actions] would have a huge negative impact for behavioral health care,” Gillaspy told Stateline. “Everyone’s on pins and needles about the potential cuts right now.”

Variations across states, different challenges

In at least 15 states, more than 40% of people on Medicaid reported experiencing a mental illness, according to a KFF analysis of 2021-2022 survey data from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Republicans in Congress are still hammering out whether or how they might cut Medicaid. Chris Pope, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning policy group the Manhattan Institute, told Stateline he doubts mental health services or reimbursement rates would be affected, because the largest sources of spending are acute and long-term care.

“From a fiscal point of view, mental health is basically a drop in the bucket. It’s not where the big savings are going to need to come from,” Pope said.

Medicaid reimbursement rates for mental health services vary dramatically from state to state. Reimbursement for an hourlong individual psychotherapy session ranged from $95 to $135 in 2022, according to a 2023 study published in the journal Health Affairs.

States generally have flexibility in setting their physician reimbursement rates. So “if states have money to increase reimbursement rates,” they can do that, Pope noted. And many states have done that. According to a January 2023 KFF report, nearly two-thirds of the 44 states that responded to a survey said they increased behavioral health reimbursement rates for some Medicaid enrollees in 2022 or planned to in 2023.

Oregon passed a bill during its 2022 session to raise the state’s Medicaid behavioral health reimbursement rates by an average of 30% for providers who mostly see Medicaid patients, in an effort to address mental health care workforce challenges. In 2022, the state had the fourth-highest rate for unmet need in mental health treatment across the nation. Now, the state has one of the highest reimbursement rates.

“In Oregon, they actually have always really committed to paying providers well and giving cost-of-living updates so that it makes it much more attractive to providers providing Medicaid services,” Jen Yerty, a licensed counselor in Portland, Oregon, told Stateline. But Yerty said the higher reimbursement rate is the bare minimum to keep providers interested. She said she helps her clients with case management, including assisting them with accessing social services and rental aid.

“It would be great if they would actually reimburse us more for all the case management things that we do. It would be great if they offer a lot more resources,” Yerty said.

But behavioral health services, such as a psychological test to assess mental health function, are not one of the federally required Medicaid services, like a primary care doctor visit.

Gillaspy, of the American Psychological Association, noted the level of services offered across states also varies. And case management and psychological testing are exactly the types of services that may be on the chopping block as states consider cuts, he said.

What states can and have done

Researchers at KFF point out four main ways states have been trying to address mental health workforce shortages for state Medicaid programs. They include increasing reimbursement rates, reducing administrative burden on providers, creating licensure compacts to allow providers to work across state lines or reducing licensure requirements, and incentivizing participation by, for example, reimbursing providers quickly.

Megan Cole, an associate professor of health policy at Boston University, told Stateline there are other options states could pursue, such as raising taxes to offset the federal cuts and keeping reimbursement rates high. She also said Medicaid can ask primary care providers to start integrating preventive mental health screenings and services before care becomes acute and requires an emergency room visit.

“There are models of care that work well in this space, and not every state is currently implementing them. So I think there is a lot of opportunity for expansion of some of these integrated care models,” Cole said.

Another option she recommends is for states to invest in community health centers, where a lot of patients on Medicaid see mental health providers.

Investment in public health facilities is also what Michigan Republican state Rep. Phil Green had sought when he cosponsored a bill with Democratic lawmakers in 2023 to increase reimbursement rates to community behavioral health clinics. But the bill died last year, likely because other issues took priority, he said.

Green told Stateline that mental health issues are a bipartisan issue. Green says lawmakers in his caucus, including some veterans, are well aware that mental health issues are a big concern within the population. “Republicans and conservatives alike realize that this is a growing issue and a growing need.”

He thinks that if the feds cut their contributions to Medicaid, state Republican lawmakers will still be interested in finding some solutions to the shortage of mental health care workers.

In California, the state in 2023 implemented changes to improve reimbursement for providers of Medicaid mental health and substance use disorder services through county behavioral health departments. The goal of the effort was to remove some of the common problems providers faced, including long delays in reimbursements and lengthy auditing processes.

David Hindman, a past president of the California Psychological Association, said the most important effect was to increase the rates of reimbursement to help meet the increased costs of providing care for Medicaid recipients. Hindman works for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, but said he is not authorized to speak on behalf of the department.

“We’ve actually expanded services significantly,” Hindman said. “It’s completely incentivized provider agencies to see low-income patients because it gives them better reimbursement rates. It covers more things.”

Still, Hindman said, clinicians not working through county health departments who see a lot of Medicaid patients still struggle with making ends meet. And he says states will still have to explore solutions to the workforce shortage in the face of major federal funding cuts.

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at [email protected].

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

The good, bad and ugly of energy drinks

• March 22, 2025

March is National Caffeine Awareness Month, and as the name implies, awareness of our caffeine consumption should be on our radars. While there are proven health benefits of caffeine, the Food and Drug Administration recommends we keep our daily consumption of caffeine to 400 milligrams. Yet the rising popularity of energy drinks, which have the highest concentrations of caffeine of any beverage, have adverse health effects from overdrinking, especially among youths. (download full page)

ENERGY DRINK LIFE CYCLE

10 MINUTES: Once you consume an energy drink, the caffeine begins to enter your bloodstream, which increases your heart rate and blood pressure.

15-45 MINUTES: The caffeine level in your bloodstream reaches its peak causing you to feel more alert and more focused.

30-50 MINUTES: All of the caffeine is absorbed in the body. The high concentration of added sugars in the drink overload the liver, which can lead to liver disease with continued consumption.

1 HOUR: As the effects of the caffeine begin to die down, your body starts to experience a sugar crash, causing you to feel tired as energy levels decrease.

5-6 HOURS: This is the half-life of the caffeine in your body, meaning it is reduced to 50%. However, the half-life for caffeine in children and teenagers is significantly longer – which is why energy drinks can cause anxiety and behavioral problems with children.

12 HOURS: This is the time it takes for an adult to fully remove caffeine from their bloodstream. The speed at which this happens can depend on age, activity and weight of the individual.

12-24 HOURS: For those who consume caffeine or energy drinks on a regular basis, this is the time frame at which the individual can experience withdrawal symptoms, which include headaches, irritability and constipation.

7-12 DAYS: This is the time frame it takes to develop a tolerance to a regular dosage of caffeine. To feel the effects of caffeine, you’ll need to increase your consumption.

​ Orange County Register 

Nearly one-third of American adults now trust social media for financial advice: Why that’s a terrible idea

• March 22, 2025

By James Royal, Ph.D., Bankrate.com

Nearly one-third of American adults (30%) who looked for financial advice in 2023 turned to social media, according to Bankrate’s Financial Security Survey. Younger Americans are even more likely than the average to seek out financial advice from social media, potentially setting them off in the wrong direction during their crucial early saving years, when they could get a jump-start on building wealth.

While social media may be a popular way to access low-cost financial advice, it’s a terrible resource for a number of reasons — here’s why.

1. Financial advice often comes from non-experts

Anyone — literally anyone — can claim to be a financial expert on social media and offer advice as they try to attract an audience. Having a presence on social media and declaring yourself a financial expert doesn’t make it so, however.

“Social media is flooded with misinformation,” says Jeff Busch, financial adviser at Elysium Financial in South Jordan, Utah. “So-called experts typically lack education and credentials to give such advice.”

In some worst-case scenarios, so-called advisers may be telling you to do things that are a crime, setting you up for more expense and potentially more significant legal issues.

That’s why it’s vital to check the credentials of any social media personality, and working with a certified financial adviser can help you get good advice.

2. Financial advice may be self-serving

Financial advice from social media is apt to be self-serving, and “finfluencers” may be trying to sell you something that benefits them personally, rather than giving you quality advice.

“Most social media ‘advice’ is designed to hook you on fear or greed,” says Brad Clark, investment adviser representative and founder of Solomon Financial in Carmel, Indiana. “If it is one of those two, then it likely has an underlying reason for being shared. You are going to get sold something based on this fear or greed.”

So social media may try to show how rich you could become if you purchased the finfluencer’s cryptocurrency or if you bought their wealth-building system, which benefits them personally. Of course, they may also be touting legitimate financial products that give them a huge commission.

“If someone truly has a ‘get rich quick’ scheme that works, they would just do that and get rich and stop wasting their time trying to sell others on it,” says Clark.

3. Financial advice may not be tailored to your needs

Even if the financial advice on social media may sometimes be accurate, that doesn’t mean it’s the right advice for you specifically. Your specific financial circumstances are different from someone else’s, and you’ll need advice that fits your needs.

“When it comes to finances, what might work for a person may not work for someone else,” says Clark. “While it could even be good advice for some, it could be terrible advice for others.”

Busch agrees: “Goals, savings, debt, risk tolerance should all be taken into account, and each is different for each person.”

So with social media, you may end up with advice that’s suitable for someone, but not you.

Where to go for good financial advice

If you’re looking for good financial advice, it’s important to understand who’s providing it.

High-quality websites with credentialed writers and advisers

High-quality websites with credentialed writers or advisers can offer good financial advice. Sites such as Bankrate have experienced and often credentialed writers, including those with the certified financial planner (CFP) designation, who can offer valuable insight into financial issues. Such credentialed advisers can provide accurate financial advice that may work for you.

Despite these positives, many individuals have differing financial situations that may require custom advice. So they need to carefully assess whether they need more customized advice.

Fiduciary financial advisers

A fiduciary financial adviser — one who acts in your interest all the time — is the solution for those looking for the best advice. Your best bet here is to look for a fiduciary adviser who accepts only fee-paying clients. This setup means that you’ll need to pay for financial advice, but this pay structure offers the best opportunity to align the interests of your adviser with your own. If you’re not paying for financial advice, it may be because they’re really salespeople in disguise.

“Financial advisers who are fiduciaries bring a lot of value,” says Clark. “Their goal is to understand the client’s situation and then make recommendations to help them achieve their goals.”

“The key advantage to working with a financial adviser is receiving a customized financial plan,” says Busch. “A personalized plan allows an adviser to understand your personal goals and provide support along the way of your life.”

A well-aligned fiduciary adviser can help you make the financial decisions that make the most sense for your situation, and the best financial advisers can help you build wealth for the long term. Here are four of the most important tips to find a financial adviser who is aligned with you.

Bottom line

Those looking for the best financial advice tailored to their specific situation can turn to a top financial adviser aligned with their needs and steer clear of dubious advice on social media.

“You should exercise caution and take any information you find and consult with your own financial adviser,” says Busch. “It’s the safest way you can build a solid financial plan and avoid costly mistakes.”

Editorial disclaimer: All investors are advised to conduct their own independent research into investment strategies before making an investment decision. In addition, investors are advised that past investment product performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation.

©2025 Bankrate online. Visit Bankrate online at bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. ©2025 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Larry Wilson: Radio Free Europe loss means one cowboy less on world stage

• March 22, 2025

Sometimes in a culture there’s one single moment — one speech, one piece of art, one song — after which everyone recognizes the changing of the guard.

It always looks or sounds so obvious, as if it had always been there and we just hadn’t seen it, or heard it, although of course it wasn’t so obvious until its creator or creators sculpted it, which wasn’t necessarily easy — it’s only in retrospect that it was so inevitable.

In pop music, the tipping point that led to the renaissance that was American indie rock after a period when only the British post-punk bands — the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, or the Irish upstarts U2 — were doing anything interesting was the 1981 release by REM, an obscure new band out of Athens, Georgia, of one banger of a song: “Radio Free Europe.”

The success of the driving, muddy, lyrically almost incomprehensible song was propelled by the simultaneous burgeoning of college radio, the left-of-the-dial FM stations of which began playing the number in joyous saturation, because here was something new, something the hidebound “album-oriented rock” stations of the time, locked in to terrible bands like Foghat and Foreigner, and unnecessary spinnings of the same old Led Zep, couldn’t fathom.

One song. A revolution. That was clear. A thousand garage bands were formed on listening to it. But what the hell was it about?

Stipe so often sang in a mumble — a “Murmur,” as a later album was titled — that all the lyrics excepting the “Radio Free Europe” chorus were indecipherable.

When the song was added in 2010 to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress because of its cultural significance, critic Lori Majewski wrote: “Turns out, R.E.M.’s breakout single is named for a U.S.-funded organization that disseminates uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate in countries around the world where, in its own words, ‘a free press is banned by the government or not fully established.’ How ironic, then, that ‘Radio Free Europe’ liberated rock fans in their own country, gifting music fans with a song that signaled the end of the world as rock fans knew it while heralding the arrival of a thrilling new one.” Turns out Stipe wrote the lyrics on a kind of bet: the band had grown up hearing commercials for the government network aimed at spreading democracy behind the Iron Curtain, and guitarist Peter Buck challenged him: “Write a song with that as the title.” He did, but the rest of the lyrics have little to do with spreading democracy.

When I was growing up, in the same way that it seemed weird, and a little appalling, to learn that the CIA sponsored cultural tours of jazz artists, and even poets and New York School painters, to Eastern Bloc countries, the idea of Radio Free Europe and its parent Voice of America had the hint of jingoistic propaganda about it. In spy novels, the cultural attaché is always really a spy.

And, look, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union split up, and Germany was reunited. We, uh, won the Cold War.

But these days, given your Hungaries, descending into fascism, and your Russias, already descended into czarism, the idea of an American network telling it like it is to listeners in troubled parts of the world — even if they no longer have to hide in the attic secretly tuning in to your frequency on their analog dials — doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Listen in and you’ll find straight down the middle news.

But, for the next three years at least, forget about normie hopes for America or its voice overseas. Donald Trump considers the plain-talk VOA “The Voice of Radical America,” because it reports both sides of stories, and thus he wants to “ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.” And, Katie, bar the door, “in March 2019, Voice of America ran a segment about transgender migrants seeking asylum in the United States.” Can’t have that news reported! A Trump executive order last week guts the United States Agency for Global Media to “the minimum presence.” Vladimir Putin will see that, as my  Somali friend Saeed Omer used to say when we worked together in the Middle East, as “one cowboy less”  on the world stage as American influence diminishes.

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

Viewers flock to web cam livestreaming Big Bear bald eagle’s nest to the world

• March 22, 2025

Full of questions about Big Bear Valley’s bald eagles, 5-year-old Ava Diaz watched the livestream of the nest on the large monitor and captured images with her own pink camera.

As Ava pointed out interesting behaviors the eagles displayed in their nest overlooking Big Bear Lake, her mother took in the monitor and materials presented by the A.K. Smiley Public Library in Redlands to connect patrons to nature they wouldn’t normally get to see up close.

“This is my first time seeing the display,” Cindy Diaz said. “My daughter loves it!”

Hundreds of thousands of people are equally enamored with the eagles, flocking to social media to watch the lives of Jackie, Shadow and their chicks unfold in real time.

The Redlands library set up its monitor March 10, just a few days after all three of Jackie’s eggs had hatched.

According to library director Don McCue, the display — which includes the livestream on a monitor, a collection of books and photographs, as well as information on eagles, owls and other birds — is attracting youngsters and others to learn more about animals.

“All ages check the display out,” said Jason Topor, the IT administrator who set the livestream up in the library. “It’s great because not everyone has the ability to stream the eagle cam.”

Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that maintains the livestream, has kept it going for years in an effort to connect people with nature, “so that they will love it and want to take care of it,” according to Jenny Voisard, media manager for the organization. The nonprofit is aware of several libraries that share the livestream with their patrons.

“We don’t monetize our sites and the feed is free from advertisements,” Voisard said. “We try to provide a calm, low-drama environment, real-time eagle observations and a place for people to ask questions and share their own experiences and wonder about nature.”

Something about Jackie and Shadow is special, Voisard added. They make people laugh and cry — the latter especially in recent years, as Jackie’s eggs have not survived the winter. Before this year, her last successful nesting season was 2022 when Spirit hatched and soared away.

“We understand (when viewers) freak out a little, because we love them too,” Voisard said.

Topor said one library patron informed staff the eagles deserved their privacy and shouldn’t be on camera, but most visitors who stop by the display enjoy the show.

“I’ve watched the feed before, but didn’t know it was here at the library,” said Valerie Boone, another Smiley patron. “It’s fantastic.”

The library sees about five people an hour stop to check out the eagle display. Four of the books from the display have been checked out and three have been returned so far, circulation clerk Julia Hanna said.

Many viewers of Jackie and Shadow’s world were disheartened to learn one of the three newly hatched eaglets died. As livestream fans mourned the chick’s passing, Friends of Big Bear Valley counseled viewers.

“Please allow yourself to grieve and feel whatever you feel,” the nonprofit wrote on social media. “Please honor the chick for its courage in getting as far as it did and doing whatever it came to do.”

To keep up with the eagles, view the 24/7 livestream on YouTube or visit the Smiley library at 125 W. Vine St. Library hours are available online at akspl.org.

The library display will be up as long as patrons want to watch it, McCue said.

​ Orange County Register 

Will California Democrats defer to former VP Kamala Harris if she runs for governor?

• March 22, 2025

Former Rep. Katie Porter certainly didn’t wait for former Vice President Kamala Harris to decide whether she, too, wants to run for California governor in 2026.

But Porter, in recently declaring her candidacy to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom, has put a bit of an asterisk next to her campaign.

Should Harris decide to enter the race, Porter would bow out, her spokesperson has said.

Porter is laying out her cards.

“If Kamala comes into this race — especially if she comes in tomorrow, she comes in now — it’s going to have a near field-clearing effect,” Porter said on a recent episode of the “Pod Save America” podcast.

It would be “disrespectful,” Porter said when pressed on why she’s willing to defer to Harris rather than run a campaign regardless, not to acknowledge that the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee “would be an incredibly strong candidate.”

Meanwhile, other candidates are ignoring the Harris-of-it-all shadow cast on the already-crowded field for governor.

Former Assembly Speaker and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, for instance, said a theoretical Harris entry doesn’t matter. He’s in it to win it, he said during a recent event at the UC Student and Policy Center in Sacramento.

So what’s the better campaign strategy for the field of Democrats, a group that, as of now, includes legislative leaders, members of the state’s executive branch and a former congressional representative?

Defer to the person who led your party in the recent presential election?

Or fight for pole position, convince voters that no matter who else runs, you’re the best one for the job?

It’s politics, so predicting just which approach is the most politically savvy strategy may be a fool’s errand this early in the race.

Still, it could prove to be a defining moment for Democrats, said Matt Lesenyie, who teaches political science at Cal State Long Beach, with a focus on political psychology and messaging.

Likening it to an actual horse race, Lesenyie said the Democratic Party — and to some extent, Republicans, too — have struggled because they have not had their top candidates really go toe-to-toe with one another.

“Their thoroughbreds haven’t actually had to run a race until it was too late,” he said. “(Former President) Joe Biden is a quality candidate but probably should have had another runner-up against him in the primary to show he still has it or he doesn’t.”

But certainly when you have a race oversaturated with quality candidates, most of them are going to take a foreseeable loss, Lesenyie said.

So some candidates may need to decide if they’d gain more by going up against a candidate like Harris — or if they can afford another loss on their record.

“There’s an unwritten rule: You can only lose two races and continue on with your political career,” Lesenyie said. “Voters can sour on you because you’re a two-time loser. You may be a winner other times, but you’ve picked the wrong fights.”

And then there’s the fundraising aspect. Lose too many races and donors may keep their wallets closed.

In that sense, “it may end up looking like either getting all the way in or staying out until Harris should decide might have been more plausible strategies,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political messaging at USC and UC Berkeley.

Schnur said a defer-to-Harris strategy is “a puzzling approach.”

“The message is essentially, ‘I’m the second-best person in California to be governor. Give me money just in case the person who is better than me doesn’t run.’ It’s hard to see how a lot of donors would contribute to a candidate who might not be in the race later this year,” Schnur said.

Harris reportedly said she would decide by the end of summer whether she’s entering the race.

In the meantime, other Democratic candidates have been a bit less vocal about their plans.

A spokesperson for Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis has said she remains committed on her gubernatorial bid. But Politico reported that Kounalakis, who is close to Harris, is also quietly considering running for state treasurer instead.

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond told Politico “we’ll see” about his campaign’s future should Harris run, but also said he was not running for anything else.

Businessman Steven Cloobeck is not one of those candidates. He unequivocally said he does not care who else is running; he’s in the race because he believes “California is worth fighting for.” He accused the other Democratic candidates of being too focused on their own resumes and wanting to “force each other into the race” to see if they’d have a better chance of running elsewhere.

“Those in office now have failed us,” he said. “They have not done the job or the work.”

While Porter has taken that defer-to-Harris approach, she’s balancing it with still casting herself as the No. 1 person for the job.

Porter’s campaign, in a recent fundraising email, of course, makes no mention of Harris. Instead, it acknowledged “this race won’t be a walk in the park” with so many contenders and propped the former congresswoman up as “a leader who is ready to go toe to toe with extremists.”

And when pressed on the “Pod Save America” podcast if she thought she’d be a better chief executive for California than Harris, Porter said, “If I didn’t think I would be the best governor that California could have, I wouldn’t be in this race.”

But Schnur, at least, isn’t necessarily convinced it’s the right approach.

“‘I’m in the race for now,’ is not a particularly compelling bumper sticker,” he said.

​ Orange County Register