Reappropriate ‘illegal immigrant’ to shine a spotlight on injustice of U.S. immigration restrictions

• June 18, 2023

Ana, a frontline nurse during the pandemic, spent over two years singularly focused on providing the best care possible for her patients and staying updated on scientific research surrounding Covid. Despite her exhaustion, she was happy to work.

Ana had put herself through nursing school and graduated with honors. She now devotes herself to her work and to building the best life possible for herself.

Originally from Central America, Ana decided to leave her country a few years ago. By her late teens, cartels had taken over her city. Cartel feuds, extortion and murder made it extremely unsafe, especially for a young woman. It was hard to focus on her education while her family faced demands from a cartel to use their business as a front to sell drugs. This environment of rampant violence and economic chaos made it impossible for an ambitious person like her to thrive.

Ana knew the ideal place to live was the U.S. because, while visiting a relative here years ago, she had seen America with her own eyes: the busy streets, the number of prosperous businesses, the safety, the abundance in the supermarket, the potential for growth — her home country paled in comparison. In America, she realized, someone like her could make the most out of life.

By any reasonable standard, Ana is an admirable person: she takes her life seriously and works hard to pursue her values. But there’s one more thing to know about Ana: she’s in the U.S. after overstaying her tourist visa. Some people call her an illegal immigrant.

But should we call people like Ana “illegal immigrants” — a term loaded with shame?

The anti-immigrant camp uses that term in an attempt to smear immigrants. Many like to paint a picture of illegal immigrants as gang members who jump the border to smuggle drugs and commit heinous crimes. But the reality is that most illegal immigrants are peaceful, hard-working people like Ana. A majority enter the U.S. on a temporary visa (which means they’ve been previously vetted like Ana), and decide to stay beyond their allotted time—which violates U.S. immigration laws.

Because of the pejorative intent of the term, it is understandable that people who think of themselves as pro-immigrant see it as offensive. Being staunchly pro-immigration, I too resisted using it, preferring euphemisms like “undocumented” or “unauthorized.” But I’ve changed my mind.

The term attempts to shame people like Ana, who come to America to work, to earn their own way, to build a better life. But the shame doesn’t lie with her—it lies with the system that is designed to keep her out.

If we rethink and repurpose the term “illegal immigrant,” we can use it to re-orient attention to this unjust system. We can use it to highlight the fact that our immigration system criminalizes the moral decision to come to America in pursuit of happiness, a system that treats wanting to work as a vice instead of a virtue. A system that criminalizes millions of people for wanting to make something out of themselves by working—something that is otherwise rightly admired in America – is un-American.

Related: Open the borders to those seeking a better life

Some people will ask: “why didn’t Ana come here legally?” Because the U.S. immigration system is designed to keep productive would-be immigrants like Ana out. Ana would have had to try to get a loan to pay thousands of dollars in fees and other visa requirements, wait out the process in her cartel-infested country and wander for years through a multilevel bureaucratic maze. And then she’d be a citizen, right? No, that’s just to gain authorization to study and work in the U.S. temporarily. And that’s only if she manages to qualify for one of a narrow list of visas in the first place. When I tell Americans about my own legal immigration story and what I had to go through, their jaws drop. The process is not feasible for a vast majority of productive people who want to live and work here, so it’s unsurprising that ambitious individuals like Ana end up immigrating illegally.

A lot of peaceful, courageous people are eager to immigrate to the U.S. in order to work to make their lives better, but the immigration system locks them out. Those who dare to come anyway are made to live their life in the shadows and in fear, because their actions are illegal.

Related Articles

We should abandon the euphemisms like “undocumented immigrants” and “unauthorized workers.” Those euphemisms imply that people like Ana have in fact done something wrong and only help mask the real problem: that these individuals are being criminalized by unjust laws for a moral decision that they made.

“Illegal immigrant” works as a smear because what it actually means is rarely put out in the open — that the presence of peaceful, hard-working people is illegal in America. It’s time we confront this shameful fact and bring clarity to the debate by using the term in the appropriate way. Repurposing it is about illuminating the injustice of the U.S. immigration system, not about abusing immigrants.

Next time you hear the term “illegal immigrant,” don’t think of gang members or think it’s derogatory to call a hard-working immigrant that. Think of Ana and just how moral and brave her decision was to come to America, and how shameful it is that our immigration laws brand her a criminal.

Agustina Vergara Cid is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. You can follow her on Twitter @agustinavcid

​ Orange County Register 

Federal indictment against Trump just the latest attempt to bring him down

• June 18, 2023

In 1920, nearly one million Americans voted for Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs for president even though he was in a prison cell at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

Debs had been convicted two years earlier of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He was charged for giving a speech that was critical of America’s involvement in World War I. “I know of no reason why the workers should fight for what the capitalists own,” he said.

The government said he was interfering with military enrollment.

Today the Espionage Act of 1917 has been exhumed to charge former president Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP frontrunner, with 37 counts that could put him in prison for 400 years. Trump has gone up in the Republican primary polls since the indictment was announced, a development that First Lady Jill Biden called “shocking.”

Is it? Trump has been hit with baseless, false allegations non-stop since he entered politics — the pee tape, the Russia hoax, the steering wheel, the tax returns. So many accusations. So much nothing.

This federal indictment may also turn out to be nothing, because the rules for handling government documents and classified information are simply different for presidents than for anyone else who works for the government. Presidents have an absolute power to declassify anything, and there is no official process that they must follow to do so. The relevant Supreme Court case is Department of the Navy vs. Egan in 1988, in which the court said, “As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States,” the president has the “authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security,” and this authority “flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.”

Congress did provide for presidents to determine, in their sole discretion, what materials are presidential records and what materials are personal records, and to take with them when they leave the White House whatever personal records they choose to keep. The law is the Presidential Records Act of 1978, and the relevant case is Judicial Watch, Inc. v. National Archives and Records Administration, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in 2012.

In this case, Judicial Watch had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for audio tapes of President Bill Clinton, which were recorded by historian Taylor Branch. The tape recorder in the room sometimes captured Clinton’s half of telephone conversations. Judicial Watch demanded that the court declare these tapes “presidential records” under the Presidential Records Act and order the National Archives to take control of the tapes and make them available at the Clinton Presidential Library.

But that didn’t happen.

President Clinton had determined the tapes to be personal records under the Presidential Records Act and he kept them in his sock drawer, a location not under the control of the National Archives and Records Administration. Under the PRA, NARA had no power to override the president’s determination that the tapes were personal records.

And neither did the court.

“The question of whether a court can review a records classification decision under the PRA is not as open and shut as either side suggests,” wrote Judge Amy Berman Jackson.

Citing 44 U.S.C. Section 2203(b), Judge Jackson wrote, “Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion.” And further, “Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records.”

The whole subject of presidential records management has been complicated by litigation ever since the end of the Nixon administration. However, there’s no dispute that while he was president, Trump had the authority to declassify anything, to make the determination of what records were personal, and to take the personal records with him when he left the White House. No one had the authority to override his decision. And the National Archives had no legal control over the personal records in Trump’s home.

So why did the FBI raid Mar-a-Lago? The House Judiciary Committee is trying to get answers to that question. The Biden administration has not been cooperative.

The FBI says it found documents “with classification markings” at Mar-a-Lago, but documents with classification markings are not necessarily classified documents. The burden of proof is on the government.

Related Articles

In between the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Presidential Records Act of 1978, there’s another set of laws from the early years of the Cold War, when the modern system of national security classification was created. Trump was not charged under the classification laws, which prohibit negligence or gross negligence in the handling of classified material. The indictment charges Trump with willful retention of national defense information as defined, or not defined, in the Espionage Act.

Perhaps the reason has something to do with all the high-ranking government officials who have not been charged for negligent handling of classified information, none of whom were covered by the Presidential Records Act. As a U.S. senator and as vice president, Joe Biden improperly retained classified documents and kept them in his home, office and garage. Awkward.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was so negligent with classified information that some of it ended up on the computer Anthony Weiner used to send sexting messages to teens he met on the internet. Yet there were no search warrants for Chappaqua, and no charges for Clinton.

President Warren G. Harding eventually commuted the sentence of his imprisoned and defeated Socialist Party opponent, Eugene Debs. Today, Debs is remembered for his anti-war speech, and Harding is remembered for the Teapot Dome bribery scandal.

If history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly rhymes trying.

Write [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley

​ Orange County Register 

Sacramento’s harmful policies drive the California exodus

• June 18, 2023

As the exodus of Californians and their businesses continues apace, Gov. Gavin Newsom denies reality, downplaying the flow of people and companies from his state as inconsequential. 

But the facts are well-documented — and grim: from January 2020 to July 2022, the state lost 600,000 people. That’s more than the population of Wyoming. The loss has been so severe that California lost a congressional seat for the first time in its history. Without a major change of direction, hundreds of thousands of individuals and scores of businesses will continue the flight from California.

Thanks, then, to the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce for acknowledging a problem Newsom can’t see — and for assessing the ways in which bad governance is responsible for the outmigration. Reading the 68-page document leads one to a simple conclusion: Government must do less.

The report features a compilation of interviews the Chamber conducted with 23 California CEOs who aren’t named. That offer (or demand) of anonymity is evidence enough of business leaders’ anxiety about the state’s reputation for hostility to free enterprise; who wants to criticize regulators in a state with a reputation for seeking and destroying business? The 23 CEOs describe their difficulties in detail, with one summarizing the sense of others thusly: “I have dealt with governments around the country, but the most business unfriendly [and] adversarial government is California.” 

The CEOs cite a long list of reasons businesses are leaving, including high tax rates, the burdensome regulatory environment, high energy costs, inadequate infrastructure, and the state’s out-of-control homeless crisis. Each of these problems can be traced back to state and local government policies, and that accounts for the Tax Foundation’s 2023 State Business Tax Climate Index (cited in the report) that ranks California as 48th in the nation for corporate, individual, property, and sales tax rates. 

Overzealous environmental regulation, particularly the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), is described in the Chamber report as “extraordinarily cumbersome.” Gov. Newsom has recently recognized the need to reform CEQA, which is notorious for tying up construction projects for years. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, Newsom’s proposed reform would exempt only government infrastructure programs from the disastrous law. Everybody else can labor beneath the dead weight of CEQA — or, as many have, simply leave the state altogether.

Add to that California’s far-fetched climate experiments, like the war on gas stoves, the untenable shift to wind and solar energy, a ban on the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 (further threatening California’s already stressed power grid), and energy regulations that hit Californians with highest-in-the-nation costs for gasoline, natural gas and electricity.

California hosts half of the nation’s homeless population despite exorbitant state spending on “solutions” — $20 billion in just the past four years. This is on top of wildly expensive local government programs, like Los Angeles’ failing Measure HHH bonds. That program spends $800,000 for each unit of homeless housing, well above market cost.

The CEOs told the Chamber that solutions to the homeless crisis “have not been forthcoming” from urban politicians. Meanwhile, businesses bear the cost when patrons avoid high-vagrancy areas. 

Related Articles

So what can California do to end the madness? Just do less. The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce report recommends a lighter regulatory touch, one that recognizes the regional variations in industry. Silicon Valley has different economic needs than the Central Valley; Inland Empire logistics firms aren’t LA’s aerospace, video production, and apparel firms; San Diego’s biotech industry definitely ain’t Hollywood. Trying to engineer a one-size-fits-all regulatory regime managed in Sacramento will stifle these important, organic regional variations.

The report doesn’t explain every issue perfectly. It concludes that “modern urban work-life amenities,” such as recreation opportunities, are necessary to attract workers and businesses. To many, that will sound like a call for the state to do more to “improve quality of life.” Rather, it ought to be a reminder that leaders ought to execute only their legitimate responsibilities — like improving public safety, cutting taxes, and reducing regulation. Ultimately, politicians should step back – should do less – and let individuals manage their own lives. The quality of life will improve when California tries a little human liberty. 

Even then, the reputational damage has been deep and broad. The results of a do-less campaign will take years before business leaders recover their faith in California. 

Sheridan Swanson is a research manager at the California Policy Center.

​ Orange County Register 

Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani hit back-to-back homers in Angels’ win

• June 18, 2023

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — No one expected Mike Trout’s puzzling to slump to last as long as it has, and now perhaps it’s finally over.

Trout homered just after Shohei Ohtani put the Angels up with a two-run homer in the fifth inning of the Angels’ 5-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Sunday afternoon.

Ohtani, who leads the majors with 24 homers, has been sizzling for a month, while the Angels have been waiting for Trout to join him.

Even with only one of their sluggers slugging, the Angels had been winning, now with 11 victories in their last 14 games to bring a 41-33 record back home for a two-game series against the Dodgers. The Angels pulled ahead of the Houston Astros, into second place in the American League West and sole possession a wild card spot.

The leader during the hot streak has been Ohtani, who hit seven homers in the Angels’ seven-game trip. Meanwhile, many around the Angels were quietly — or not so quietly — concerned about Trout.

Trout came into the game hitting .252 with an .820 OPS, well below his career averages of .300 and .993. Over the previous 42 games, he’d hit .207 with a .687 OPS, with no homers since June 7.

“I was never worried about it at all,” Manager Phil Nevin said. “I’ve seen this before. Just as any good player goes through some struggles, compounded a little bit because it was every single day. He put in a lot of work. He kind of backed off his work. He added some work. The fact is he’s healthy.”

Trout has said all along that he’s feeling good, and he shrugged at various times during the cold streak, saying that either his timing or pitch-recognition was not what it normally is.

He said it finally started to feel right on Saturday, when he doubled, singled and walked, with a single on a 99 mph fastball from Aroldis Chapman.

“I felt like myself,” Trout reiterated on Sunday.

The difference?

“I think the biggest thing is I wasn’t loading, I was just gliding forward,” Trout said. “I had nothing behind it. That’s why I was under everything. Just trusting my work these last couple days. It’s been great.”

Sunday, Trout drew a walk from veteran Zack Greinke in the first inning. In the fourth, he yanked a double into left field. And in the fifth, just after Ohtani had homered to put the Angels up 3-2, Trout pulled his 15th homer of the season over the left field fence.

In the ninth, another struggling Angels hitter, Jared Walsh, hit a homer to give the Angels an insurance run. Walsh, who missed the first quarter of the season after dealing with neurological issues, had been hitting .111.

It was enough for a victory for Angels starter Tyler Anderson, who gave up two runs in five innings.

Although the left-hander has a 5.64 ERA, he has managed to get through at least five innings with the Angels in the game or ahead regularly. The Angels are 9-4 in his 13 starts.

“When I’m not pitching my best, which I haven’t been, just try to give us a chance to stay in the game,” Anderson said.

This time they were able to turn the game over to Jaime Barría in the sixth inning. Barria is the Angels No. 6 starter, but they have two off days this week, so they are able to use him out of the bullpen for now.

The Angels needed a fresh arm in the bullpen after the relievers were worked heavily earlier this week in Texas, which may have contributed to their meltdown on Saturday in Kansas City.

Barria worked three scoreless innings, and then closer Carlos Estévez pitched the ninth to pick up his 19th save in 19 tries. Estévez equaled the Angels record by converting his first 19 save opportunities of the season.

It sent the Angels into a happy clubhouse, having quickly put Saturday’s nightmare behind them with a victory, and also with the confidence that perhaps now they’ll have both of their stars hitting.

“You can’t win games with just two guys,” Nevin said, “but I think if there were any two back-to-back in this league that can do it, it’s those two that can carry a team for quite a while… When your superstars step up in big places, it gives everyone else around lot of confidence. We know we can compete with anybody.”

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

Rickie Fowler, Wyndham Clark tied after U.S. Open’s third round

• June 18, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Like commuters on the 405 freeway at rush hour, the players at the top of the leaderboard at the start of play found it difficult to make much forward progress during Saturday’s third round of the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club.

Among the final 10 players to tee off on Saturday, the best score posted during an extremely difficult day of golf was a 2-under 68 posted by Scottie Scheffler. As a result, six players will start Sunday’s final round within six shots of the lead held by Murrieta native Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark, who are tied at 10-under 200. Rory McIlroy, looking for his first major title in nine years, sits in third place following his 1-under 69 on Saturday that leaves him at 9-under par 201. Scheffler is alone in fourth at 7 under.

Through 16 holes Scheffler was among the crowd feeling extremely frustrated, primarily because of his inability to convert any of the birdie opportunities he gave himself that could have propelled him closer to the players above him on the leaderboard.

Scheffler’s outlook and his position heading into Sunday’s final round dramatically changed when his second shot on 17 bounced on the green and proceeded to roll into the cup for an eagle, putting him back in red numbers for the first time since a birdie on the first hole. He followed the eagle by making a long birdie putt on 18, giving the former Masters champion some strong momentum heading into Sunday.

“I was fighting all day today, trying to just get myself back in position, just trying to make some birdies and avoid the bogeys,” Scheffler said. “I didn’t do a great job of that for most of the day but I grinded it out pretty hard. I felt like today was one of the days where I got punished for my mistakes, whereas yesterday I felt like I wasn’t getting punished at all. Today it seemed like every time I got offline, I was really fighting for par. Just fortunate to see that shot go in on 17 and then a nice birdie on 18 to kind of get myself back into it.”

After grinding so hard for much of the round, Scheffler’s big finish could very well provide the jump start he needs to rally from behind on Sunday and win his second career major championship.

“I’m standing there on 17 tee looking up at the board and I’m seven shots back and I’m thinking maybe I can steal one shot coming in, but really I’m just trying to hit the fairway there just to give myself some sort of chance, because if you miss that fairway on 17, I am going to be fighting for par again,” Scheffler said. “Then I hit a nice drive and the (second) shot goes in and it’s a huge boost. Then I hit another two good shots into 18, nail the putt, and all of a sudden instead of seven shots back I’m only three. So definitely a huge momentum boost going into tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll just keep it rolling.”

Before the leaders had even showed up at the course to begin preparing for their rounds, Tom Kim provided some hope for those needing to post a really low round when he went out and fired a 6-under 29 on the front nine. Kim started with a birdie on one and added four more birdies over his next five holes. After a par on seven, he birdied eight and nine, making the turn at 6 under. But three bogeys on the back nine led to a 2-over 37, leaving Kim with a 4-under 66.

“That back nine is really hard. You just don’t really have any bailouts,” Kim said. “Those three bogeys really don’t feel like bogeys because I barely missed it by a yard or two. But major championship golf, U.S. Open really brings it out of you. Would have been nice to kind of par in and see that bogey-free or see one or two more birdies, but if you told me at the start of the day, I’d take that score.”

Fowler will be attempting to go wire-to-wire when he tees off Sunday in search of the first major championship title of his career. Unlike Friday’s roller-coaster second round which saw Fowler post eight birdies and six bogeys, Fowler’s third round was much less frantic. Throughout the 18 holes he was never more than one shot higher or lower than his starting score of 10 under.

“A little bit of a grind out there today,” Fowler said. “Still hit some good shots, but with the firmer conditions and the pins being some kind of tucked front pins. When you miss the fairway, it makes it very hard to make par. I had to accept some bogeys there in the round early on, but I feel like we did a good job of kind of staying present, moving forward, and like I said, still a lot of quality shots. Through three rounds we’re in the spot that we want to be in.”

It appeared as if Fowler would finish the day alone at the top of the leaderboard but his short par putt on the final hole lipped out, dropping him into a tie with Clark. The miss seemed to surprise Fowler, who gestured with his hands in disbelief.

“You could see from the first putt, there’s a lot of slope there,” Fowler said. “I’m not sure why it didn’t move. It should have. I hit a good putt, just a bummer. It would be nice for that one to go in. Really doesn’t matter, having the lead, being one back, two back. You’re going to have to play good golf tomorrow.”

While Fowler said he has experienced the usual nerves that go with trying to win a golf tournament, he feels overall he’s been able to handle the pressure that goes with chasing a major championship better than he has in quite a while.

“This is the best I’ve felt all year and definitely in a long time,” Fowler said. “We all feel nerves at times, depending on certain shots or circumstances, but I mentioned it yesterday and then still stand by it. This is the best I’ve felt, let alone in a normal tournament but especially a major, and I would say really ever in my career.”

Early in the round, it appeared McIlroy might be ready to go low and distance himself from the pack. He birdied two of his first three holes and had good opportunities for birdies on several other holes on the front side. But time and time again his birdie putts just missed and over the final nine holes he, like everyone else in the field, found himself battling to keep from dropping strokes.

“The golf course definitely got a little bit trickier today than the first couple of days,” McIlroy said. “I felt like I played really smart, solid golf. Hit a lot of fairways, hit a lot of greens. Overall, yeah, pretty pleased with how today went, and feel like I’m in a good spot heading into tomorrow.”

While he’s one of the few players near the top of the leaderboard who have won a major, McIlroy said he doesn’t believe his previous success gives him any type of leg up heading into Sunday.

“It’s been such a long time since I’ve done it,” McIlroy said. “I’m going out there to try to execute a game plan, and I feel like over the last three days I’ve executed that game plan really, really well, and I just need to do that for one more day.”

As he strives to win the biggest tournament of his career, Fowler was asked what winning a US Open title would mean to him.

“I mean, obviously it would be huge, especially being here in Southern California, having a lot of people, family and friends that are out here this week,” Fowler said. “We have a chance tomorrow. I mentioned out there after going through the last few years, I’m not scared to fail. I’ve dealt with that. We’re just going to go have fun, continue to try to execute, leave it all out there, see where we stand on 18.”

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

Bobby Miller’s magic runs out as Dodgers are routed by Giants

• June 18, 2023

LOS ANGELES – Rookie right-hander Bobby Miller has been checking off firsts at a rapid clip since making his big-league debut less than a month ago.

He checked off a couple more Saturday – first big-league home run allowed and first loss.

LaMonte Wade Jr.’s three-run homer was the big blow in a four-run fifth inning against Miller as the San Francisco Giants routed the Dodgers 15-0.

Miller hadn’t given up more than a run in any of his first four big-league starts and had kept the powerful lineups of the Braves, Yankees and Phillies in the park. But the Giants’ four-run fifth put an end to his 20-inning scoreless streak (and 27-inning homerless streak).

The rookie right-hander looked set to continue the magical start to his big-league career when he allowed just two hits through the first four innings against the Giants – one a ground ball that ricocheted off his back. But there were signs that his command wasn’t as sharp as it had been in his first four starts.

It got worse in the fifth. He walked Luis Matos to start the inning. Matos stole second and went to third on an errant pickoff attempt by Miller. The Dodgers brought the infield in and Brandon Crawford flared a single (57.5 mph off the bat) just over their heads and onto the outfield grass.

That snapped Miller’s scoreless innings streak and broke a scoreless tie in the game. It got worse.

Miller hit No. 9 hitter Casey Schmitt with a pitch then left a first-pitch curveball over the plate to Wade. He crushed it, sending it 399 feet into the back of the visiting bullpen.

Miller got out of the fifth but only after giving up a double to Thairo Estrada.

Another walk started the sixth inning. An infield single and another RBI single from Crawford followed to make it 5-0. When Miller’s pitch count reached 92, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts ended the rookie’s day.

Things didn’t get better from there. Alex Vesia came in and walked the first batter he faced, Wade, then gave up a first-pitch grand slam to J.D. Davis. Seven of the Giants’ runs were charged to Miller whose ERA went from 0.78 after his first four starts to a more mortal 2.83 now.

The Giants scored eight more runs against a Dodgers’ bullpen that has allowed 48 runs in 57 2/3 innings in June, showing no signs of shaking off its status as the team’s biggest problem.

One run allowed would have been too many on a day that saw the Dodgers’ offense get shut out for the first time since April and only the third time this season.

The Dodgers entered the game averaging six runs per game over their previous 27 and had been held under five runs just six times during that stretch. But a familiar face, Alex Wood, held them scoreless for five innings.

The Dodgers got just one baserunner as far as second with Wood on the mound. Michael Busch led off the third inning with a double and went no farther.

Reliever Tristan Beck completed the shutout, allowing just one hit after the sixth inning.

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

U.S. Open: Par 3s at Los Angeles Country Club are having a big impact

• June 18, 2023

Among the top seven players entering the weekend, only Rory McIlroy and Harris English finished in the black versus Par-3s on the north course at Los Angeles Country Club.

Collectively, the leaders shot 28-under on par-4s and 28-under on par-5s. But the five eclectic par-3s, which in Round 3 featured the shortest hole in U.S. Open history? Two-over.

The same group was plus-one on the three-shot holes during moving day.

Playing 81 yards on Saturday, No. 15, the last of the bunch, produced plenty of discussion and action.

Three aces on the 15th this week — Matthieu Pavon and Sam Burns on Thursday, Matt Fitzpatrick on Friday — ranks one shy of the U.S. Open record set in 1989 on the 6th hole at Oak Hill Country Club.

Playing off its third-round yardage, several 15th holes would fit neatly between the tees and greens on each of the other Par-3s.

From the tips in descending order, No. 11 (290 yards), No. 9, (171 yards), No. 7 (284 yards) and No. 4 (228 yards) have continually challenged the field.

“It’s miles better than the other two long par-3s,” said Fitzpatrick, last year’s U.S. Open champion, of No. 15. “It’s not even a contest. For me, I just think that you got a sand wedge or a lob wedge or a gap wedge in your hand and you’re nervous, and I think that’s the thing. That’s why you’re always hitting 3-wood in, and 7-wood. You’re not nervous.”

Through 54 holes, however, only the 15th has yielded more birdies than bogies (105 to 33) among the par-3s.

Taken together, they have surrendered 219 birdies in addition to the three hole-in-ones.

But they have claimed 441 bogies and 55 doubles or worse.

A FOX AND A GARDNER

A USGA record 10,187 entries were accepted for the 2023 U.S. Open.

Of the 156 players who qualified for LACC, 61 at +2 or better made it to the weekend.

Tournament rules require golfers to have company on the course because not only are they responsible for keeping their own score, they need to be monitored, too.

Enter LACC’s director of golf, Tom Gardner.

Early last week, Jeff Hall, who oversees “inside the ropes” activities for the USGA, approached Gardner about being a non-competing marker in case an odd number of players got through.

When Frenchman Paul Barjon finished with a double bogey on the 18th Friday to miss the cut, 36-year-old New Zealander Ryan Fox lost a playing partner for the third round.

Going off the No. 1 tee in the first group at 9:33 a.m. on Saturday, Fox and Gardner completed 18 holes in three hours and four minutes, more than two hours faster than the average pace of play on Thursday and Friday.

“I’m not a competitor,” said Gardner, whose caddie, LACC head professional Rory Sweeney, fell short in his attempt to qualify for the 123rd U.S. Open. “But to be able to say that I got to play a U.S. Open setup on the weekend and see what it’s like and see the energy of the crowd and see the pins and the firmness and the rough and everything that goes along with it, it’s — I can’t really describe it.”

As confirmed by Gardner, Fox carded 1-under, 69.

Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa (+10) has the solo honors on Sunday.

BLAME THE EQUIPMENT

Scottie Scheffler, golf’s No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, hasn’t made putts the way he wanted the past few months so he put a new putter in his bag this week.

But the game’s best ball striker has driven the daylights out of the ball. So why would the 2022 Masters champion trash his driver on Friday night?

“I kept hitting it left,” Scheffler said following his third straight round in the 60s. “Then I grabbed the backup and it started going straight. And then I just tossed it away.”

This wasn’t a case of operator error. The face of Scheffler’s 8-degree TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus driver had flattened or caved in, he said.

After finding 6 of 13 fairways in the second round, the Texan, who turns 27 next Wednesday, hit 10 of 13 fairways in Round 3 and is three off the lead.

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

Carlos Vela helps LAFC end skid with victory over Sporting KC

• June 18, 2023

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Carlos Vela scored in the final minute of regulation to rally Los Angeles FC to a 2-1 victory over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night, snapping the club’s six-match winless streak in all competitions.

Alan Pulido scored on a first-half penalty kick and Sporting KC (5-9-5) took a 1-0 lead into halftime. Pulido’s PK score gave Sporting KC the lead in the 17th minute. Pulido has four goals in his last three matches after scoring just once in his previous 19 appearances.

LAFC (8-3-5) pulled even early in the second half when rookie defender Denil Maldonado took a pass from Mateusz Bogusz in the 48th minute and scored his first career goal.

Vela scored for a fifth time this season, using a pass from Aaron Long in the 90th minute to help the defending champions earn a much-needed victory. The three points pull LAFC into a tie with expansion team St. Louis City for the top spot in the Western Conference, one point in front of the idle Seattle Sounders.

John McCarthy had six saves for LAFC. Kendall McIntosh saved two shots for Sporting KC.

LAFC entered play 0-5-1 in its previous six matches in all competitions. The club had just three losses in its previous 26 matches. LAFC’s longest run without a victory came in 2021 when it had a 0-3-5 stretch.

Sporting KC had won four straight at home entering play after a 0-3-1 start.

LAFC lost by shutouts in four straight matches in all competitions coming into play. The club had failed to score in five of its last six matches after being shut out five times in its previous 67 matches in all competitions.

Sporting KC snapped a three-match skid against LAFC with a 1-1 draw earlier this season in LA.

LAFC returns home to host the Seattle Sounders on Wednesday. Sporting KC travels to play the Los Angeles Galaxy on Wednesday.

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register