Jon Coupal: Californians must reject costly bond measures this November

• July 8, 2024

California politicians are addicted to debt. For voters and taxpayers, it’s time to schedule an intervention. Let’s pick November 5th.

The amount of debt already assumed by state and local governments is easily in the hundreds of billions of dollars. In fact, if debt is defined as legally binding obligations that require future payment, this would include pension debt and promises for lifetime health benefits for public employees on top of more traditional debt such as general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, “certificates of participation,” and a host of other binding commitments. According to a 2022 analysis by the California Policy Center, this amount exceeds $1.5 trillion.

At the state level, politicians love debt because it gives them funding for their special projects or for rewarding their allies, yet they still are able to claim that they are not directly raising taxes. But under the category of “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” all debt must be repaid at some point. And too much debt, be it servicing bond debt or paying pension obligations, crowds out the ability to meet current needs.

In a welcome development, it appears that voters are becoming increasingly suspicious of politicians who pretend debt is free money. The recent statewide bond measure to address homelessness, Proposition 1, barely passed despite proponents outspending opponents by 15,000 to 1.

Moreover, while Californians still rank education as one of the state’s top priorities, they remain unwilling to write blank checks for bonds being pushed by special interests that include developers and the bond industry. In March of 2020, voters rejected, for the first time in decades, a statewide bond for school construction.

This November, California voters will be asked to once again approve a $10 billion statewide school bond as well as a $10 billion “climate bond.” In addition, voters in nine Bay Area counties will confront a massive $20 billion regional “housing” bond. For myriad reasons, all three bond proposals deserve to be rejected.

First, the school bond. AB 247 reflects typical credit card math by Sacramento politicians because it would borrow $10 billion from Wall Street and then make taxpayers pay it back plus interest. Depending on interest rates, the total cost to taxpayers could easily exceed $18 billion.

While no one disputes the need for adequate school facilities, the problem is that the state’s education establishment has failed to make the case for more capital spending in an era of declining enrollments. And this measure also presents a huge threat to homeowners. While it is true that the bond itself – plus interest, of course – will be repaid out of the state’s general fund, local school districts are required to provide matching funds except on very rare occasions. Those matching funds are generated by local bond measures which are repaid exclusively by property owners.

Another problem with AB 247 is the preference for school construction projects that employ a “project labor agreement.” This is a transparent payoff to the politically powerful construction trade unions. But for taxpayers, PLA’s can easily add 25% to 30% to construction costs as well as exclude responsible construction companies from competing for the business.

As for the “climate” bond, this $10 billion proposal is a scaled-back version of the $15 billion bond introduced earlier in the legislative session. It’s no bargain. Now renamed the “Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024,” it would borrow money to cover the expense of running ongoing programs. If the programs are worthwhile, they should be funded in the budget instead of racking up interest charges for 30 years.

In a nutshell, this proposal is inconsistent with the principles of sound debt financing. Bond financing can be justified where the cost of a major infrastructure project – at either the state or local level – is greater than could be funded directly from general fund revenues without making significant reductions in service. But proponents have not made the case for why this grab bag of various projects couldn’t be financed from the general fund, other than the self-inflicted “budget crisis.”

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Finally, the largest affordable housing bond in California history will be decided by the voters in nine Bay Area counties. This regional bond proposal, which dwarfs all previous statewide housing bonds, will raise the property taxes on a typical home by thousands of dollars over the life of the bonds. The entire financial obligation will rest solely on the backs of property owners within the nine-county region. Given that homeowners are high-propensity voters, this bond from the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority is already facing organized opposition.

BAHFA is hoping for voter approval of ACA 1, which would retroactively lower the vote threshold for passing housing bonds from two-thirds to 55%. But taxpayers don’t like this kind of political gamesmanship, as evidenced by the negative polling on an earlier version of ACA 1.

An overarching problem for the tax-and-spend crowd is that, when voters are confronted with multiple proposals seeking more of their dollars, they could very well vote no on all of them just out of spite.

Spite or not, that would be the best outcome of all.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

​ Orange County Register 

He’s won professor of the year four years in a row. What makes him so popular?

• July 8, 2024

Criminology. Law. The Supreme Court. Bad Bunny. Harry Styles. Taylor Swift.

Any one of these topics could weave its way into a Brandon Golob lecture at the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology. At the surface level, his willingness to bring pop culture into the classroom is one reason why students have voted him professor of the year four years running in a school survey. He admits he scores bonus popularity points when he comes to campus with his rescue dog, Bruce, a 14-pound chihuahua-corgi mix.

Sure, students say Golob is well-liked because he can chat about the Grammys or the Oscars. On a deeper level, they say he’s a great professor because of the way he challenges them to think about democracy and the law and to analyze the way they perceive the world around them.

“Professor Golob creates a safe and engaging learning environment and also teaches critical thinking skills, especially with contemporary analysis of current events,” one student wrote in their nomination of Golob for professor of the year in 2024.

“His teaching style is innovative and interactive, incorporating real-world examples and current media to make complex concepts accessible and engaging,” another student wrote.

“His method of teaching is probably the most effective way I’ve ever seen anyone in all my years of school actually teach,” wrote a third.

Golob, who does not shy away from bringing identity and politics into the classroom, would tell you that to understand his effectiveness as an instructor you would have to understand his background and UCI’s.

UCI has a diverse student body. More than 25% of its student body identifies as Latino. At least half of all students receive financial aid. And, nearly 50% of this year’s graduates are first-generation college students.

A first-generation college graduate himself, Golob can relate to how daunting — and rewarding — it can be to navigate the UC system. He received his dual B.A. in rhetoric and interdisciplinary studies from UC Berkeley and his J.D. from the UCLA School of Law before receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. in communication from USC. Realizing that he preferred the mission of public education, he landed a job at UCI straight out of his graduate program in 2018. Now a tenured professor, he teaches legal communication, criminology, constitutional law and leadership classes. He also serves as an associate dean of UCI’s campuswide honors collegium, an undergraduate honors program.

“Students see me as someone on the other side of what they would like to do,” he said. “So I try to be really human about all the mistakes I made and show them it still worked out. It alleviates some of that anxiety they have when they act like, ‘I failed a final, I’m never going to make it.’”

Even after starting college, Golob did not envision himself in academia, he said. He figured he’d strike a career in law, but was privately ambivalent about that, too.

“I was the first in my family to go to law school,” he said. “I didn’t really know what it was like.”

It’s a struggle he sees reflected in many of his students — their projection that law is the right path for them, but their inability to meaningfully articulate why. “So many of our students say they want to be a lawyer or want to work in law enforcement, but when you really get down to it, they’re like, ‘I love ‘Suits’ or I want to study criminal law because of ‘How to Get Away with Murder.’”

After completing his doctorate, Golob wanted to stay in Southern California and he wanted to teach law to undergraduates. UCI’s School of Social Ecology would allow him to do both.

“Most law students know exactly what they want to do, and as a professor, I’d just be there as a means to an end. Versus undergrads, the experience can change their whole life perspective,” he said.

Rather than lecture on black letter law like a professor might in a law degree program, Golob said he prefers to teach law in “broad brushstrokes” in ways that he hopes students will find useful in life.

His courses aren’t limited by the Socratic method or other rote forms of instruction, he said. Rather, he encourages students to engage in all sorts of activities and assessments from small group discussions to podcasting to essay writing. He even modeled one online leadership course around a “Survivor”-esque island theme.

In class, he said he aims to “humanize” the law. Rather than having students memorize their Miranda rights, for example, he encourages them to explore the life of Ernesto Miranda and what his case means today in the larger context of policing in America.

In class, the millennial professor breaks up heavy conversations with lighthearted activities such as “New Music Fridays.”

Traditional legal scholars might bristle at the way his lectures on legal doctrine take detours into chats on Coachella headliners. They might not like that he wears polos and sneakers to work. But for Golob, popular music and culture are a means of expression and a route to student engagement.

“We build music into every one of my classes,” he said. “In my hate crimes class, we’ll listen to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off.’ Haters gonna hate, you know. Or, in my constitutional law class, we’ll listen to ‘Hamilton,’ things along those lines.”

It might sound teenybop, but Golob’s pedagogy has multigenerational appeal. He’s won separate professor of the year honors from graduate students, including those in his leadership seminar for mid-career law enforcement professionals.

In their reviews, students write the underlying reason for Golob’s appeal is not so much the music or even his dog, Bruce, but the way he builds trust in the classroom.

Whether he’s teaching 40 students or 250, 18-year-old freshmen or 18-year veterans of the district attorney’s office, Golob gives his students agency in their own instruction. Instead of handing out a typical syllabus, he works with his students to draft a “compassion contract” for each of his courses. It’s a set of ground rules the class as a whole agrees to before engaging in challenging legal conversations around sensitive political topics that could range from policing to abortion.

“At the outset of each class, we’ll lay out here’s how we’ll dialogue with each other. Here’s how we’ll treat one another when we come up against difficult, complicated topics that have different emotional responses,” he said.

Each class contract, he said, enables students to take risks in discussions and escape their “echo chambers” by sharing thoughtful perspectives on what can be polarizing topics.

“We’re not all here to be comfortable. We’re not here to have an echo chamber,” Golob said. “We use our classroom to be a microcosm for the real world. Class is not going to be your group of TikTok friends reinforcing your beliefs. We always ask ourselves how people beyond the classroom may be thinking about these issues, reminding ourselves even with the diversity of perspectives that we have within our classrooms that it’s not representative of reality in the world. We remind ourselves that there’s always more at stake than what’s happening in the classroom.”

When analyzing Supreme Court decisions, for instance, he asks students to consider how each judge might use their unique lived experiences to approach a decision. That could mean bringing race, gender and socioeconomics into the classroom. “I’m not saying identity is ever completely determinative of their perspective, but we’ll investigate and ask, ‘How could this potentially impact their decision-making?’” Golob said.

This naturally leads to challenging conversations about privilege and identity, and Golob recognizes these topics can quickly become touchy subjects in academia and politics. But, in his experience, addressing them head-on has been the best way to bring his students together.

“My students are an unparalleled bright spot during dark, divisive times in higher education,” Golob said in a statement accepting his award. “They motivate me to teach from a place of authenticity and receptivity. I’m honored that they find value in my courses, but what I learn from them is far richer; it could never be distilled into a lesson plan.”

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​ Orange County Register 

LA Phil goes Hollywood with a trio of concerts featuring the movie scores of composer John Williams

• July 8, 2024

The LA Phil is taking audiences to the movies this month with a trio of shows that will feature popular film scores performed live by the orchestra.

“It’s more akin to a classical music rock concert,” said Maestro David Newman, who will lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the concert dubbed “Maestro of the Movies: The Music of John Williams and More.”

The shows will take place at the Hollywood Bowl July 12,13 and 14. Williams was scheduled to share the stage with Newman during the concert, but according to LA Phil officials, due to a recent health concern he will be unable to perform.

Williams has scored more than 100 movies and created some of the most iconic film scores of all time for films like “Superman,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” as well as films in the “Star Wars” franchise.

“Everyone has movies that they love, and a lot of them are John Williams movies, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas movies,” Newman said. “And the music in them is a big integral part of it and John Williams is a huge part of these films,” he said.

And Star Wars fans tend to bring the force with them to these concert since many bring lightsabers to the show and wave them around during the “Star Wars,” portion of the show.

“It’s a very visceral kind of nostalgic experience,” Newman said.

Besides Williams’ music, the night will also include scores from movies made during Hollywood’s “Golden Age,”  Newman said.

“It’s all an ecstatic celebration of the music of the music of John Williams and also of the entire output of Hollywood,” he said.

‘Maestro of the Movies: The Music of John Williams and More’

When: 8 p.m. July 12-13, 7:30 p.m. July 14

Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 Highland Ave, Los Angeles

Tickets: $54-241

Information: hollywoodbowl.com

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​ Orange County Register 

After time away, Dodgers’ Blake Treinen enjoying chance to compete again

• July 8, 2024

LOS ANGELES — A proudly religious man, Dodgers relief pitcher Blake Treinen relied on reading the Bible to get through nearly two years of shoulder pain, surgery and rehabilitation.

But there were a couple other proverbs that stayed in his mind. He remembered hearing Kobe Bryant’s advice once – don’t fall in love with the game, fall in love with the process. And that great philosopher Mike Tyson, Treinen recalled, advised that discipline is when you do the things you hate like you love them.

“Sitting for two years isn’t fun,” said Treinen, who pitched just five innings in 2022 while dealing with a capsule tear in his shoulder, had shoulder surgery that fall to repair his rotator cuff and labrum and spent all of 2023 rehabbing from that procedure.

“God saw me through a lot the last two years. I tell my wife all the time you never know how much longer you have or how much you want to be doing it. But I’m thoroughly enjoying this stretch of however much longer I have.”

It was a lot to go through for a 34-year-old (now 36) with a full career behind him. Treinen’s return this season was even delayed until May when he was hit by a line drive during one of the last games of the Cactus League schedule this spring. Add cracked ribs and a bruised lung to the list of injuries he had to overcome.

But Treinen said he never wavered or considered retirement.

“I didn’t want to end injured,” he said. “My wife and I have both prayed since I entered the game that I would get to walk away on my own terms – not from someone telling me I’m not good enough, not from an injury putting me out.”

Treinen said he was confident all along that “I’d come back and play and I’d be just as good if not better than I was.”

He certainly doesn’t seem far off.

In his first 23 appearances this season, Treinen has allowed seven runs in 20⅔ innings. Six of those runs came on two swings – a grand slam by Kansas City’s M.J. Melendez to end a 12-pitch at-bat on June 15 and a walk-off home run by Brett Wisely in San Francisco on June 28. Batters are hitting just .195 (15 for 77) with 26 strikeouts against him this season.

“I know the big question mark after the shoulder surgery and whatnot was what was the velo going to be,” Dodgers assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness said. “But he’s actually averaging the best depth on his sinker of his career. He holds himself to this incredibly high standard of the 97, 98 (mph) but 94 to 96, zero-vert sinkers are still very good pitches and a lot of guys around the league would kill to have a pitch like that. He had the sweeper that came into play more in ’21. He’s fine-tuned that.

“For me, it’s just more remarkable that with all the stuff he’s been through to be this version of himself. It’s arguably a better version of what he’s been in previous years.”

At his peak in 2019-21 – before his shoulder issues – Treinen’s sinker averaged 97 mph. This year, that is down to 94.6 mph. His slider – or sweeper – has also lost a little velocity, down to 83.9 this year.

The results indicate the changes haven’t made Treinen any easier to hit. His strikeout rate is actually up slightly from his career norm. In particular, hitters are swinging and missing at his slider at a higher rate than ever (52.9%).

But one thing has changed – an extreme ground ball pitcher throughout his career, Treinen has actually got more fly balls this year than ground balls (21 to 20).

“Who knows?” McGuiness said when asked to explain the change. “The league knows him. … They kind of know what we’re trying to do. I’m sure they’re trying to cheat to that sinker to get underneath it. That could be producing it. Even the sweeper, if you’re trying to stay on plane with that thing, it’s more two-plane and they end up popping it up. I think that could just be more a strategic thing where they’re trying to counteract the movement that he’s creating.”

Asking Treinen how he has changed as a pitcher in this post-surgery phase of his career produces a moment of silence.

“I don’t know how to answer that question,” he said. “Maybe competing like I still have the same stuff and not really paying attention to the velo. So maybe I’m not going to be able to bully people as much with velo and shorter reaction time. But I think my movement patterns are a little better than they were in the past.”

Treinen isn’t ready to admit his days of throwing 97, 98 mph consistently are behind him. He thinks he will regain that velocity “if it continues to track the way it has so far.”

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“Last year I had aspirations to be back (by the) end of July or early August,” said Treinen, who made three rehab appearances in the minor leagues. “It just didn’t work out. I tried it. My body just wasn’t ready. I needed a whole year to get to a point where I could throw on a regular basis without being stiff.

“Based on that trajectory, this year if I want to be this version of myself I can’t chase velocity because my results will probably reflect that I’m not focused on the moment. There are times when I feel really good and my arm is in position to really hammer, trust it and throw the crap out of it. Those are the days when it’s (9)5 to (9)7. Other days, it’s – throw with a purpose and pitch and I’m (9)3 to (9)5, touching (9)6.”

McGuiness won’t bet against Treinen recovering more velocity. He points to recent work with Dodgers vice president for player performance Brandon McDaniel putting Treinen’s mechanics “in a really good spot.”

“With everything that we had seen with that shoulder injury and whatnot, there were a lot of question marks about whether he could do it,” McGuiness said of Treinen’s return to form. “But if you know the human, it’s no surprise to me that he could do this.”

Dodgers relief pitcher Blake Treinen watches from the dugout during the eighth inning of their game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

​ Orange County Register 

Bronny James has 4 points in summer league debut for Lakers

• July 7, 2024

By JANIE McCAULEY AP Sports Writer

SAN FRANCISCO — Once that second-quarter layup went in and he finally had his first NBA points after a trio of misses, Bronny James could exhale and everything began to slow down.

He hardly expects to be perfect at this early stage of his professional career, and every touch and possession will provide an opportunity for growth and learning.

He sure felt the love and support Saturday, even playing in the Bay Area ruled by Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors.

“The atmosphere, it was more than I expected,” a grinning James said. “It’s a big game for me, but I didn’t know the people of Golden State would come and rep for me, so that was pretty nice to see.”

Oversized headphones on his ears and dressed in full Lakers gold as he geared up for his NBA Summer League debut on Saturday afternoon, the rookie looked so much like his famous father, LeBron, it caused some at Chase Center to do a double-take.

Down to their familiar mannerisms, facial expressions and the way they run or shuffle back on defense. Bronny James took his place in the starting lineup for the Lakers and his professional career was formally underway, with plenty of scouts in the building to witness it as he wore jersey No. 9 – not to be confused with his dad’s former No. 6 uniform he sported before switching to 23.

“Every first game that I step on the next level there’s always some butterflies in my stomach, but as soon as the ball tips and we go a couple times down it all goes away and I’m just playing basketball,” he said. “It’s always going to be there but get through it.”

The younger James wound up shooting 2 for 9 from the field for four points, missing all three of his 3-point attempts, with a pair of assists, two rebounds and a steal in just under 22 minutes of court time – 21:43 to be exact – as the Lakers lost to the Sacramento Kings, 108-94.

First-round pick Dalton Knecht (No. 17 overall out of Tennessee) had 12 points on 3-for-12 shooting (1 for 4 from 3-point range) and went 5 for 9 from the free-throw line to go with four assists, two rebounds and two steals in 26 minutes.

Blake Hinson had a team-high 17 points on 5-for-8 shooting (5 for 7 from behind the arc) to pace the Lakers, and Tommy Kuhse had 15 points (6 for 10 shooting) and eight assists. Maxwell Lewis had 14 points on 6-for-13 shooting.

James missed his initial two shots while playing nearly six minutes in his first action – grabbing a defensive rebound 1 minute, 20 seconds into the game then missing a 21-foot jump shot moments later. He came up short on a 26-foot 3-point try at the 4:23 mark of the opening quarter before getting a breather.

There were cheers and a warm ovation when James returned to the court at the 8:17 mark of the second quarter. He was initially whistled for his first career foul on a 3-point attempt by Sacramento’s Xavier Sneed on the right wing with 7:23 remaining, and James argued briefly before the play went to replay review and was overturned. James missed a 3-point attempt off the front rim from the top of the arc at 7:04.

Then, at last, James scored his first NBA points on a driving layup 5:51 before halftime.

“Moments like that can slow the game down for you especially because I wasn’t as productive as I wanted to beforehand,” he said. “… I couldn’t get the 3-ball to fall, but all the reps it’s going to come more smooth.”

James missed a pair of free throws at the 4:43 mark of the third period in his first trip to the line.

At one point during his warmup routine, the 6-foot-2 guard stood with hands on hips in a resemblant position to one of his father. And during the game, the son leaned over by the baseline 3-point corner, gripping his knees while waiting for the offensive possession to begin.

The younger James was drafted by the Lakers with the 55th overall selection in the second round out of USC.

He will get another chance to play Sunday at 3:30 p.m., when the Lakers face the Warriors, again at the Chase Center. Lakers summer league coach Dane Johnson plans to give James plenty of chances to acclimate and gain valuable experience in the coming days and weeks.

“Hopefully he’ll play all the games, we’ll see how it goes,” Johnson said. “We’re going to try to integrate him and get him as many reps as we can. He needs more experience playing.”

Johnson applauded James’ keen court awareness, noting, “we all know he has good instincts already, so finding the consistency within those he’ll build as we keep going forward in the summer league and throughout the coming season. His instincts are there, we’ve just got to keep building habits.”

If all goes as planned, the 19-year-old James and his dad would become the first father-son pair to play in the NBA at the same time – and on the same team no less.

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“What he does in the California Classic and Summer League, it doesn’t matter if he plays well and it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t play well,” LeBron James said at USA Basketball’s training camp in Las Vegas. “I just want him to continue to grow, practices, film sessions, his individual workouts. You can’t take anything as far as stat-wise from the California Classic and Summer League and bring it once the season starts. The only thing that matters is him getting better and stacking days.”

Bronny is NBA career scoring leader LeBron’s oldest son. He survived cardiac arrest last July 24 during an informal team workout at USC and it was later determined he had a congenital heart defect. The younger James signed a four-year contract that will pay him $7.9 million.

He will remind himself along the way to stay aggressive and “believe in myself knowing I can make plays for myself and my teammates.”

“Looking at my mistakes and looking at the things I did right is really good for me,” James said. “But also just game by game growing that comfort in my playing my game, I feel like that’s a big part of why I come out here and get those reps in.”

AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.

Lakers rookie Bronny James Jr. looks on during the first half of his team’s California Classic summer league opener against the Sacramento Kings on Saturday afternoon at the Chase Center in San Francisco. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

​ Orange County Register 

Sticking with Biden or Harris all but hands away the presidency to Donald Trump

• July 7, 2024

Reports are flooding in about the fallout within the Democratic party from President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance during last week’s presidential debate. For many, the fact that something like this would happen could not have been more obvious. Democratic leadership saw exactly what the rest of us saw, so how could they believe that it was a good idea to have Biden run for a second term?

I know why the average Democratic voter thought it was a good idea. They trusted the “stutter” narrative fed to them by the left-friendly media. As is common with highly politicized topics, the public can be led to deny what is right in front of their faces. But how did Democratic leaders not see this coming? 

For years now, Biden’s decline could not be fully explained by a simple stutter. He often fails to recall crucial details about his own life including the nature of his own son’s death, struggles to form coherent sentences, and regularly appears disoriented. Are we to believe that they did not expect this to happen? 

It’s hard to believe this caught them off-guard given how much they have shielded him from the public eye. He has held the fewest press conferences since Ronald Regan, which was clearly necessitated to limit opportunities for gaffes. Their awareness of the issue makes it all the more puzzling how so many Democrats are just now suggesting that it may be time for Biden to step aside.

According to some reports, many Democratic donors, governors, and lawmakers are upset that Biden’s inner circle kept his limitations a secret from them by carefully curating his exposure. What sort of strange dogmatic perspective must one have to ignore so much readily available evidence?

You don’t need to look much further than Biden’s last State of the Union address to understand how severely compromised our president is. 

Now only four months away from the presidential election, they have put themselves in a position where they can no longer deny the obvious truth that Biden is too impaired to be the president and must consider alternative candidates. 

Some of Biden’s aides came to his “defense” claiming that Joe Biden operates better between the hours of 10am and 4pm. It’s astonishing that they thought that this rehabilitates Biden’s image in any way. Unfortunately for Biden, matters of importance are not guaranteed to happen within his six hour period of productivity.

This is starting to sound more like hubris and brute incompetence. Democrats made a catastrophic miscalculation. They demonstrated hubris by thinking that they could just continue to spin every mistake that Biden did. Given what we know, it seems more likely than not that they were aware of the president’s limitations but thought that they could squeak out a win anyway. 

Democrats have given themselves the difficult choice between sticking with Biden, who everyone now knows is ill-equipped for office, or choosing a candidate from an uninspiring field to start a new campaign. 

With more Democrats voicing their desire that Biden withdraw from the election, the decision may have already been made for them. You can’t put up a candidate when so many of your own party are questioning their mental competence can you?

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That is, unless they double-down on their poor decision making. But the genie is out of the bottle now and the only sensible way forward for the Democratic party is to force Biden to withdraw and hold another primary as quickly as possible. 

They could have acknowledged privately well ahead of time that it was necessary to prepare for an election without Biden given what was plainly visible for all to see. They could have taken the time to raise some moderate Democrat’s profile. Apart from what we may believe about the Democratic party’s general policy preferences, they have a history of not doing themselves any favors with respect to beating Republicans. 

My bet is that Democrats will continue their losing tradition by either sticking with Joe Biden or by supporting some polarizing figure like Kamala Harris who is only somewhat more coherent than the president and who’s awful track record would provide bountiful ammunition for Republicans. This is a crisis of the Democrat’s own doing and with it, they’ve all but handed Trump another victory.

Rafael Perez is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at [email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

LAFC heads to Houston expecting to feel the heat

• July 7, 2024

With the emotional and stressful Fourth of July victory over the Galaxy at the Rose Bowl behind them, the Los Angeles Football Club heads to hot and muggy Houston for a rematch of the 2023 Western Conference final on Sunday.

After falling during the regular season to the Houston Dynamo twice in less than a week last year, LAFC won when it mattered most with to a 2-0 triumph at BMO Stadium in early December that sent the club to its second consecutive MLS Cup.

Sandwiched between El Trafico and a U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal match Wednesday, LAFC’s first meeting with Houston this season presents the hosts with a chance to be the first team to beat the Black & Gold in more than a dozen matches since early of May.

“We traditionally have not done well there and we’re looking to change that,” LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo said Saturday as his team prepared to travel to Texas.

In MLS play, LAFC has taken five out of 15 points in Houston, and also lost a U.S. Open Cup semifinal match in 2018.

Houston comes in losing once in its last seven matches, a 3-2 defeat at Real Salt Lake on July 3, and occupies the seventh spot in the West.

“We know we can respond,” Houston center back Erik Sviatchenko said. “We have a solid group that are at a high level.

“We need a full stadium. It could be nice against LAFC to put them under pressure at Shell Energy.”

The Dynamo (8-7-6, 30 points) have hung tough in the league despite injuries on the back line. Under head coach Ben Olsen, who took over last year and proceeded to lift the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, Houston has allowed the third-fewest goals in its conference while using a possession-based style to control matches.

“Even at home they put us under pressure,” LAFC midfielder Ilie Sanchez said. “We had to play a very complete game for us to advance to MLS Cup. On top of that, they are at home and they always show their best version when they are down in Houston, not just against LAFC but against any other opponent in this league. I remember going with Kansas City and having tough times getting results at that place, and again with LAFC experiencing the same difficulties.”

For Houston, fullback Franco Escobar, a member of LAFC’s 2022 MLS Cup championship squad, won’t play due to yellow card accumulation.

As challenging as the Dynamo can be, no team in MLS has been a bigger challenge for opponents the past two months than LAFC, which has conceded the fewest goals in the West (24) and is tied for the second most in the league (43).

Attempting to extend its club record unbeaten streak, which stands at 12 in all competitions, LAFC is “doing our best to stay with the same mentality, same attitude and discipline because we know that’s the shortest way for us to get the results,” Sanchez said.

Cherundolo’s starting lineup was consistent the past three games, though alterations could come Sunday and then Wednesday for the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal contest against New Mexico United at BMO Stadium.

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In Houston, LAFC (13-4-4, 43 points) will take the field without midfielder Timothy Tillman, who is suspended one match after receiving a yellow card versus the Galaxy. Defender Aaron Long is also questionable after taking a knock Thursday.

“There’s plenty of important games moving forward,” Cherundolo said. “Thinking game to game is really important without obviously losing sight of long-term freshness and health of the players. But it’s a tough task.”

LAFC AT HOUSTON

When: 5:39 p.m. PT Sunday

Where: Shell Energy Stadium, Houston

TV/Radio: Apple TV (MLS Season Pass)/710 AM, ESPN LA App, 980 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani slumping with strikeouts soaring

• July 7, 2024

LOS ANGELES — It wasn’t a happy birthday.

Shohei Ohtani turned 30 on Friday night by going 0 for 5 and striking out in his first three at-bats, extending a career-long streak of strikeouts to six consecutive at-bats.

The strikeouts have multiplied recently. Going into Saturday, Ohtani was 6 for 29 (.207) with 15 strikeouts in the previous seven games.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has diagnosed the problem.

“Chasing down,” Roberts said of Ohtani’s swing decisions. “It’s that simple.”

Correcting it is a little more difficult but Roberts said he has confidence in Ohtani making the adjustment.

“I think Shohei knows that he’s being too aggressive on the ball down below,” Roberts said. “(Saturday’s Brewers starter Freddy) Peralta is a guy that elevates the fastball, doesn’t throw the ball down very often. So I think it lines up really well with Shohei – albeit he’s a really good pitcher.

“I think that Shohei is very well aware of what he’s doing. And so I do think that you know, from here going forward, we’re going to see a little bit of a reset, controlling the strike zone.”

Roberts has said that has been a topic of conversation between him and Ohtani at other points during this season. But he’s leaving Ohtani to his own devices this time while feeling confident he will reverse the current trend.

“I think it’s easy (to trust him) because he’s had stretches of a couple, two, three, four games where he does that and then he resets and gets back in his zone,” Roberts said.

INJURY UPDATES

Left-hander Clayton Kershaw will throw to hitters in a simulated-game setting Sunday morning at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw could resume his rehab assignment after that and make two starts before he and the Dodgers’ decision-makers “have a conversation … if it makes sense, for him to join us.”

Roberts wouldn’t characterize it as a setback, but he said Max Muncy is no longer swinging a bat as part of his workouts. Muncy had started hitting off a tee and coaches’ soft tossing last week but continues to experience problems with his strained oblique muscle.

“He’s had additional scans and nothing has kind of come up,” Roberts said. “I wouldn’t say setback. I would just say more of there’s no progression. It just continues to remain stagnant as far as kind of this discomfort, soreness, so we just haven’t been allowed to continue to progress because he just has that same sensation.

“Everything he does turning and rotating is good except swinging the bat. So that’s kind of the weird thing. He has stopped swinging the bat.”

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Joe Kelly (shoulder) will continue his rehab assignment with Class-A Rancho Cucamonga. Kelly has thrown just 18 pitches in two scoreless innings in his first two outings.

Ryan Brasier (calf) and Brusdar Graterol (shoulder) are rehabbing at Camelback Ranch but neither is near returning.

UP NEXT

Brewers (LHP Dallas Keuchel, 0-0, 6.75 ERA) at Dodgers (LHP Justin Wrobelski, MLB debut), 1:10 p.m. Sunday, SportsNet LA, 570 AM

​ Orange County Register