Alexander: Notes on a World Series scorecard

• October 27, 2024

DENVER – The World (Series) according to Jim:

• Why Denver, first of all? Good airport wifi, and a couple of hours available before my connection to New York, where Bill Plunkett and I will keep you informed of all things Dodgers-Yankees the next two (and, in all likelihood to be honest, three) days. …

• And yes, that “notes on a scorecard” reference is a tribute to the late L.A. columnist Allan Malamud, who may not have invented the notes column but perfected it. Thank you, Mud. …

• Remember what I said in the Dodgers’ last series about how it wasn’t a lock? That applies here, too. …

• You may have heard the stats about teams that jump to a 2-0 lead. In all best-of-seven postseason series the percentage going on to win is 84 percent (77 of 92). Teams opening with two victories at home, as the Dodgers have done, have won 45 of 56. In the World Series alone, 44 of 54 teams that started out 2-0 wound up with rings and parades. …

• But a lot of those outliers have occurred in Dodgers-Yankees confrontations. Remember 1981? Dodgers lose the first two in the Bronx and win the next four, a comeback launched by that gritty Fernando Valenzuela start in Game 3 at the Ravine.

Or 1978. The Dodgers won the first two in L.A., Game 2 featuring the duel between rookie Bob Welch and Reggie Jackson. But the series turned in New York; Jackson’s hip-and-run play – when he interfered with a Dodger double play, got away with it and kept a rally alive – helped fuel a three-game Yankee sweep in the Bronx, and New York won Game 6 in L.A. with Mr. October hitting one off the back wall behind the visitors’ bullpen to win his rematch with Welch and cinch it. …

• It’s a Yankees-Dodgers pattern, since the winning team came back from a 2-0 deficit in 1956 (Yankees) and 1955 (Dodgers), but not solely. The 1965 Dodgers were bludgeoned in Games 1 and 2 in Minnesota, Don Drysdale losing the opener 8-2 and Sandy Koufax – who had missed that Game 1 start to observe Yom Kippur – dropping Game 2 5-1. But they won the series, with Koufax shutting out the Twins on two days rest in Game 7. …

• All that said, and knowing full well that the middle three games in Yankee Stadium might be a completely different animal? Nothing I saw in Games 1 and 2 convinced me that the Yankees have anywhere as deep a lineup as the Dodgers do. All of that angst during the summer over the deficiencies of the lower half of L.A.’s batting order? Right now it looks much stronger than that of the Yankees. …

• There are three ways this series can change dramatically. …

• The first is if Aaron Judge gets untracked. He was 1 for 9 with six strikeouts in Games 1 and 2, flailing at unhittable pitches and continuing a slump that began in the ALCS against Cleveland. If he gets hot between Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton in the heart of the Yankees’ order, watch out. …

• The second, obviously depends on Shohei Ohtani’s health. The Dodgers’ leadoff hitter has had his own issues – 1 for 8 with a double in Game 1 and a walk in Game 2 – the walk that turned into potential catastrophe when he partially dislocated his shoulder while getting thrown out stealing to end the seventh Saturday. He has been cleared to play, manager Dave Roberts told ESPN Sunday, in advance of the team’s media availability later in the day. How efficient he is will be a storyline to watch. …

• The third? Dodgers bullpen usage, and specifically if the Yankees get enough looks at L.A.’s leverage guys that they begin to solve them. The bases loaded mess that Blake Treinen found himself amidst in the ninth inning Saturday wasn’t totally a matter of the Yankees pounding him – who, after all, could predict Stanton’s ground ball caroming off the third base bag and high into the air, allowing Soto to score from second base?

But it was the second time in two nights Treinen had seen the heart of the Yankee order, and it’s become apparent not only from the data but from the eye test: The more hitters see a particular pitcher in a five- or seven-game series, the better chance they have to solve him. …

• If the Dodgers pull this off, Andrew Friedman and Brandon Gomes should be in line for co-Executives of the Year honors for their moves at the trade deadline. The Jack Flaherty trade was big, of course, and everyone acknowledged that at the time especially as Dodger starting pitching was taking injury hit after injury hit. And the addition of Michael Kopech strengthened the bullpen, though the hard-throwing right-hander still has his moments where command is an issue.

But Tommy Edman? We may not have thought much of that deal at the time – the theory that Friedman had targeted him for years because he fit into the club’s emphasis on positional flexibility, plus he hadn’t played yet this season because of injury. Right now, on a star-studded roster, he’s one of the most important guys in the Dodgers’ lineup. …

• The postseason can turn a guy from unknown to hero, for sure. Edman was asked after Saturday night’s game if people were starting to recognize him on the street.

“Kind of started a little bit,” he said. “Definitely when I first got here, nobody knew who I was. I’m definitely the kind of guy that you see on the street and wouldn’t look twice at. There’s other baseball players – I mean, you look at the guys on their team, you’ve got Stanton and Judge, you see them on the street, like, whoa, that guy is probably an athlete. Myself, not really, but it’s kind of started a little bit.” …

• A lot of Dodgers could cement their status as civic heroes if this ride continues. But I don’t think any of them will be running for mayor. The incumbent, the Hon. Karen Bass, not only is a regular in her box seats during these playoffs, but she’s wearing her Dodger jersey. (In contrast, I don’t expect to see embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams at Yankee Stadium this week, but I’ve been surprised before.) …

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• One person who I do wish were here to see this? The late Rosalind Wyman, who as a young L.A. city councilwoman in the 1950s was one of those instrumental in convincing Walter O’Malley to bring the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Wyman, active in Democratic Party politics and community nonprofit boards before passing away two years ago at age 92, remained a devoted fan through the years. In fact, when we talked in October of 2020 she was scheming to find her way to Arlington, Texas, for what turned out to be a decisive World Series Game 6.

She would have loved those first two games. Hopefully whoever inherited her field level box seat, near the umpires’ entrance to the field, continues to bring the noise, whether it’s in possible Games 6 and/or 7 or in 2025.

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Jeff Lynne’s ELO says goodbye with a hit-filled farewell show at Kia Forum

• October 27, 2024

When Jeff Lynne revived Electric Light Orchestra in 2015, he booked his return into the intimate Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, testing the waters perhaps to see if anyone was still interested in a band which had not played a proper show since 1981.

Oh, they were interested all right. That night at the Fonda was a thrill, with Lynne sounding as if he’d only just stepped away for a moment, not years, and delighting the 1,200 or so fans who packed theater including such starry friends of Lynne’s as Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh and Eric Idle.

A year later, Jeff Lynne’s ELO played three nights at the Hollywood Bowl, accompanied by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and since then he’s continued to record and perform with the group he co-founded in the early ’70s and found huge success with throughout that decade and into the ’80s.

But now Lynne, 76, is saying goodbye to all that.

The Over and Out Tour, which kicked off at the Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert in August, played its final California show at the Kia Forum on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 25-26,  After a rescheduled date in Phoenix on Tuesday, that’s it for Lynne and ELO.

This was no funeral at the Forum on Saturday by any means. How could it be with so many songs – 15 that made the Top 20 – which gave so much joy to millions of listeners over the years?

How could it be with that that gigantic spaceship stage prop, an image from ELO’s album art in the ’70s made real, which shined lights and shot lasers across the stage and around the arena all night?

The show opened with “One More Time,” a song off Lynne’s 2019 ELO album, and did we mention how awesome that spaceship is? In the vernacular of the ’70s, when ELO’s 1976 release “A New World Record” was one of the 12 albums I ordered from the record club for one cent – a penny! – the flying saucer is still totally bitchin’.

That might have been the least familiar of any of the 20 songs Lynne played over 90 minutes on stage. No such issue with “Evil Woman,” which followed it, the piano riff that opens the song instantly recognizable. Same with the power chords that kick off “Do Ya,” technically a cover of a song by the Move, the ’60s band from which Lynne and ELO co-founders Roy Wood and Bev Bevan all came.

None of the original members of ELO remain in the band. Keyboardist Richard Tandy, who’d joined in 1971 and played alongside Lynne in the studio and on stage ever after died in May. But the 12 members of the current lineup, including a string section of two cellos and one violin, all are strong musicians.

Other highlights early in the set included “Showdown,” a slower, vaguely Western-themed number, and “Last Train to London,” an electronic dance-pop song from the end of the ’70s.

Lynne remains a shy presence on stage. His bushy hair, beard and sunglasses look the same as they always have. Dressed mostly in black, he stood at the right side of the stage, singing and playing guitar, but seldom saying more than thanks to the audience and occasionally giving thumbs up to their cheers and applause.

Others in the band provided more action throughout the night. Backing vocalist Melanie Lewis-McDonald’s operatic vocals shined on songs such as the ballad “Stepping Out,” and she and backing vocalist Iain Hornel added lovely harmonies to “Strange Magic.”

Violinist Jess Cox stepped forward to join Lynne on several songs including an instrumental portion of “Fire On High,” and the violin solo that leads into “Livin’ Thing,” another of the best-loved ELO numbers.

That song, like many throughout the show and the ELO catalog, features the kind of strong melody and simple lyrical hook, often in the title of the song, that makes it easy for fans to sing along as they did on almost every song on Saturday.

Highlights of the latter part of the night included “Telephone Line,” complete with the ringing phone and far-down-the-line vocal effects that begin it. “Turn To Stone” surged on waves of racing rhythms.

“Don’t Bring Me Down” closed the main set, the crunchy guitar riffs and pounding drum beats anchoring the song as Lynne and the backing vocalists sang its simple but catchy lyrics.

Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra have always acknowledged a love for and influence from the Beatles, both for a similar kind of melodic sweetness and a shared interest in the use of the recording studio to unlock fresh sounds. That influence shines brightest on “Mr. Blue Sky,” from the pounding piano chords that open the number to its stacked harmonies, cowbell-like percussion, swelling strings and more.

The song, which arrived as the encore, only reached No. 36 on the charts on its release in 1978 but since then has grown more loved with each passing year and now has more than 1 billion streams on Spotify.

As farewells go, it was a perfect pick on Saturday: The crowd on its feet, singing and dancing, making, and smiling upon the musician whose creation brought a bit of blue sky into all of their lives one last time.

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Swanson: What happens when a Dodger fan and Yankee fan start getting real

• October 27, 2024

So there’s Anasazi Ochoa in L.A., a 27-year-old graduate student at USC.

And Greg Durante in New York; he’s a 35-year-old occupational therapist working at a hospital in Brooklyn.

They’re at opposite ends of a monumental event that’s altering their moods entirely and that’s also entirely (probably) out of their control.

They don’t know each other, but for the past couple days, they’ve been checking in with me, via voice memos and text messages, because I wanted to find out what happens when fans stop being polite and start getting real … while their teams are meeting in the World Series.

She’s a Dodgers fan. He’s a Yankees fan. And they’re both incredibly good sports, though, for now, Ochoa is in better spirits; her team leading 2-0 heading back to New York for Game 3 of the World Series on Monday.

FRIDAY, GAME 1

12:22 p.m., New York 

“A lot of emotions running high real high,” Durante says, a little less than eight hours before the first pitch. “All morning I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. It’s still just going back and forth between being amped up enough to run through a wall or just have a total incomplete panic attack.”

9:27 a.m., California

Ochoa is walking down Exposition Boulevard in L.A., thinking about a photo she saw of Yankees slugger Aaron Judge taking batting practice in uniform: “Like, what is up with that? … an intimidation tactic? If that’s what that is, I had to laugh … I’m feeling good about tonight. You know we’re gonna strike first, strike hard, set the tone. It’s gonna be a good game, but these guys seem like very, very not intimidating.”

Hey, real quick. Some more background on these two, before the first pitch: Durante grew up in a family of Yankees fans, in a house with a dedicated “Yankee Room” that was filled with memorabilia. “I remember,” he told me earlier in the week, “how happy I was throughout the 90s, when they were winning those championships (three out of four between 1996 and 2000) … so just them winning makes me happy, makes me feel like a kid again.” He’ll be at Game 4; didn’t have a second thought about spending $1,000 for a ticket. Had to do it.

Ochoa was raised a Dodger fan … in San Diego. She can thank her parents, lifelong Dodger fans, for that. They inherited their fandom too, particularly on her mom’s side, because Anasazi’s grandfather, Roberto, a Mexican immigrant, was swept up in Fernandomania in the early 1980s.

“Fernando Valenzuela’s impact is a huge part of my identity as a Dodger fan,” she said of the Dodgers pitching great, who died last week. “Even though I wasn’t there when he was playing, as a Mexican-American Dodger fan, that history is passed down.”

Leading her to Friday.

All afternoon in New York, Durante is getting texts, like this one, from a cousin: “Happy world series day. Let’s [bleeping] go Yankees!”

Meanwhile, in California, Ochoa shares: “I know I said I wasn’t a superstitious person, but I just thought of something: One thing I won’t do is that I will not play Randy Newman’s ‘I love L.A.’ I will only in my car after we won … that’s only reserved for our victories.”

Not a superstitious person – nope, not at all – Ochoa said she did, however, feel somewhat responsible for the Dodgers’ Game 2 loss in the National League Championship Series: “My fiancé Eric [a Padres fan] had a Brooklyn Jackie Robinson jersey, because as a Black man he felt important to honor the player who broke the color barrier. He always justified that it was representing Brooklyn, not L.A. When the Dodgers won the NLDS [against the Padres], he gave it to me, he didn’t want anything blue in his closet anymore … I wore it for the first time (without washing) on Game 2 vs the Mets. We got blown out, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it had bad mojo from a disgruntled SD fan.”

7:40 p.m. Friday, New York

“Thirty minutes left and then it’s game time, baby!” Durante says from a bustling bar on Staten Island. I picture him rubbing his palms together. “Starting to get excited, real excited.”

4:41 p.m. Friday, California

Ochoa is about to watch Game 1 on her phone in the Chula Vista High School football press box, beside her dad, Alejandro, because he’s the Spartans’ public address announcer. Oddly enough, life doesn’t stop for the World Series. The Lakers’ and Trojans’ games went on Friday, too, as did Chula Vista’s, whose school colors, Ochoa pointed out, “are also blue and white.”

At 8:43 p.m. his time, Durante texts: “ASSASSINATE THE UMPIRE.”

Three minutes later, he texts again: “Let the record show that was in jest, I do not want to be arrested on conspiracy to murder after this article prints. But seriously, these inconsistent umpires are awful and ruin the game.”

Then, at 9:47 p.m., he sends a three-second long voice memo: “STAAANNNTINN!!!”

Giancarlo Stanton, a Sherman Oaks Notre Dame product, has just hit a 412-foot two-run home run to put the Yankees ahead, 2-1. Durante also texts: “I changed spots that I was standing after L.A. scored their first run. Then HR for Stanton. I’m not moving.”

“Story of the whole season,” a glum Ochoa says in a message at 7:36 p.m. in California, where the Dodgers still trail entering the eighth. “Runners on base and we can’t bring them home. But I still believe. It’s not over till it’s over.”

You know what happens next.

8:39 p.m., California

“Oh my god, Mirjam! A freaking grand slam! Freddie Freeman! Oh my god!” Ochoa blubbers, shouts, cries – overcome after Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning gave the Dodgers a 6-3 victory.

“… oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness! That’s right, that’s right, that’s right!”

SATURDAY, GAME 2

I don’t lose Durante, though I would’ve understood if I had. I don’t hear from him after Freeman’s heartbreaking heroics until 9:27 the next morning in New York: “What a nightmare. Worst case scenario… Went to bed furious. Woke up furious. Want to punch something (but smart enough to realize how stupid that would be).

“Feeling VERY pessimistic about the rest of the series. Need to win tonight.”

At 10:23 a.m., he adds, succinctly: “I am dead inside.”

I wonder, for the millionth time: Why do we do this to ourselves?

Ochoa messages at 8:06 a.m., as soon as she wakes up: “I still can’t believe that happened… I was SHAKING.”

I tell myself: Ah, that’s why.

Durante gets up off the mat. Has coffee and goes for a long walk. Calls his dad to commiserate, and then goes and plays volleyball to “get some sunshine and take out my frustrations” and otherwise “distract myself from my overwhelming dread and use all my inner strength for optimism and hope.”

Before the game begin, he lets me know: “Last night’s T-shirt didn’t work, so tonight we go with a different Yankees T-shirt, a different watch, different shoes and a hopeful attitude.”

Ochoa spends her day doing assignments and hanging with her fiancé, Eric Fleming, before grabbing a surf and turf burrito from a spot near her parents’ house before the game started, a little after 5 p.m. “Keeping it West Coast,” she texts about a half-hour before the first pitch. “NYC has bodegas, SoCal has taco shops!”

The Dodgers crank out four runs in the first three innings, build what feels, with Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto dealing, like a comfortable 4-1 lead.

Durante: “It’s like someone is plunging a knife into my heart.”

In the fifth inning, Ochoa says: “If you can’t hear it from my voice, I’m just in a state of bliss. It’s pretty fun to be a Dodger fan right now.”

The game gets closer when the Yankees score once and load the bases in the ninth. But the Dodgers get out of it “aaaaaand twist the knife,” Durante writes from The Commissioner, the popular bar in Brooklyn where he’s watched Game 2.

“You know what?” Ochoa says after the 4-2 victory. “It’s exciting, but it’s calm. We’re ready, I think we’re definitely ready for New York. We’ve been ready for New York.”

Her reaction is subdued, though, because Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s left shoulder was injured sliding into second in the eighth inning: “All I can think about is healing thoughts for Ohtani and that’s it.”

The highs and lows, and lows and highs of sports fandom. Proving and reproving Einstein’s theory, as if he figured it out for Dodgers and Yankees fans: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A winner and a loser.

To the unindoctrinated it might seem silly, what we let sports do to us. But what sports do for us, that’s the magic.

Durante’s best explanation: “It’s an animalistic and primal reaction, completely visceral and borderline uncontrollable. It’s a situation that’s completely out of my control yet the emotions I feel are contrasting to that.

“I really think it’s out of love,” he added. “I love this team.”

Wrote Ochoa: “I watch baseball because of my family roots. The Dodgers are the team that brings us together, amidst our hectic schedules and life journeys.

“Baseball gives me hope, brings me joy, and reminds me to never give up,” she added. “Despite the countless heartbreaks these last few years, the final broadcast words of the late great Vin Scully always rang in my mind: ‘But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball.’ ”

​ Orange County Register 

60 years later, Ronald Reagan’s ‘A Time for Choosing’ speech still resonates

• October 27, 2024

Talk about early voting: Ronald Reagan won the race for the White House 60 years ago. As columnist George Will quipped, “it just took 16 years to count the votes.”

With just one week before the November 1964 presidential election, Ronald Reagan took to television to make his case for Republican poresidential candidate Barry Goldwater. In Los Angeles, Reagan recorded a 30-minute campaign ad, broadcast nationwide on Oct. 27.

His address was pre-recorded but presented as if a live broadcast. The program was “A Time for Choosing,” but often referred to as simply “The Speech,” because its impact changed the trajectory of Reagan’s life. In today’s parlance, Reagan went viral.

Reagan began The Speech saying he had spent most of his life as a Democrat but now saw fit to follow another course. He made the case for smaller government, that government is beholden to the people and Americans should reject the intellectual elite in any far-distant capital. The election was about choosing between less government control and more individual freedoms.

He had disgust for the fiscal irresponsibility that eroded the purchasing power of a dollar. Reagan was aghast the debt ceiling had been raised three times in 1964 and the country spent 10 times more on welfare than it did during the Great Depression. He criticized the United Nations and foreign aid, claiming the billions sent abroad built more bureaucracy and were used to buy a yacht for Ethiopia’s emperor, dress suits for Greek undertakers and extra wives for Kenyan government officials. In total, Reagan claimed, 107 countries received aid from the United States. Today, 210 foreign countries and regions receive assistance from American taxpayers. The debt ceiling has been raised 70 times since 1964.

Reagan spent a good deal of time attacking the bloated federal government, bureaucratic overreach and property seizures. He said each day the government spent $17 million more than it collected. Today, the overspend is $4.6 billion a day. Farm subsidies were also the enemy of free enterprise and an insult to the intelligent farmer. Reagan claimed the bureaucracy is so thick the Department of Agriculture has one employee for every 30 farms. Today, there is one employee for every 19 farms.

His speech praised the benefits of individual liberties and how the country must always stand up for freedom and be willing to pay its price. Reagan despised communism and revered freedom.

“Should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs?” Reagan asked, “Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ‘round the world?” He concluded saying Goldwater had faith in America, and Americans have a rendezvous with destiny, for the United States is the last best hope of man on earth.

The broadcast concluded with an appeal for campaign funds. Money was collected the old-fashioned way — flooding a P.O. box in Los Angeles. About $1 million was raised, a staggering sum, considering the combined Democratic-Republican presidential campaigns spent $20 million in the 1960 contest.

Reagan’s performance was noticed immediately. Just two days after The Speech, a rural Plumas County newspaper wrote about a woman who said Reagan had changed her mind about voting — no vote for Goldwater, she’s going to vote for Ronald Reagan! And thus it began. Predictably, Reagan said he had no desire to be a candidate; two weeks later he was studying the opportunity, and finally decided to run for governor, winning two terms.

Reagan’s Oct. 27 performance was not a hasty campaign whistle-stop; it was the result of relentless practice and discipline. For years, Reagan had been giving The Speech, in different forms and to different audiences. His eight-year contract to host the General Electric Theatre television program allowed him to visit GE factories and boost morale with his public speaking. His remarks hit on the evils of socialism and freedom’s blessings.

“A Time for Choosing” evolved from those earlier speeches, such as 1959’s “Business, Ballots and Bureaus.” Reagan warned about the growing power of bureaucrats to shape policy rather than elected lawmakers in Congress. Reagan said stifling regulations are “frozen into permanency by civil service regulations beyond the reach of any election.” This critique foreshadowed the 2024 Supreme Court overturning of the Chevron Doctrine, a legal principle that allowed federal agencies broad authority to interpret laws. In 1959 and 1960, Reagan delivered the triple-B speech in cities stretching from Chattanooga, Abilene, Spokane and even Honolulu. By 1961, a version of the speech was titled  “Encroaching Control,” where he called California’s governor a tower of jelly that sways left with every breeze.

He stumped for Nixon’s run for governor in 1962 and changed his voter registration to Republican that fall. His speech titles morphed to “The Price of Freedom” and “What’s at Stake?” but the core messages of fiscal responsibility and democratic freedom remained. Reagan spoke to anyone: Republican clubs, chambers of commerce, sororities, college campuses, realtors, Elks Clubs, Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs. And he went everywhere.

Reagan crisscrossed California from Barstow to Chico speaking under the shortened banner “Time to Choose.” Each speech could be tailored for the audience. Reagan dropped lines that did not have punch; he added and updated evidence as the data evolved. He studied pace and pause, picking the opportune moment to raise his voice or stay silent to absorb applause or laughter. When Reagan became co-chair of Goldwater’s California campaign, he added parts about candidate Goldwater piloting his own airplane to deliver medicine to flood-ravaged Mexico.

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A critical test came in July 1964, when Reagan spoke to 5,000 delegates at the Kiwanis convention in Los Angeles. That speech had no title but nearly every word was identical to “A Time for Choosing.” It was perfect practice for what was to come. The Republican convention was in San Francisco in just two weeks, and with Goldwater trailing in the polls, the campaign would need to muster everything to close the gap.  Goldwater is remembered for his “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” phrase during his acceptance speech. The Johnson campaign responded with the “Daisy” nuclear countdown ad that frightened voters with Goldwater’s extremism, stretching Johnson’s polling lead.

When it came time to record “A Time for Choosing,” Goldwater’s chances were slim, but Reagan was undaunted, as this moment was years in the making. Reagan spoke with a freshness and urgency that beguiled a decade of repetition. Never with a teleprompter, he had delivered countless iterations across thousands of miles, to ally and to foe, and in places big and small. Before Reagan was the Great Communicator, he was the Great Preparer. Political fortunes change abruptly by election, scandal, assassination, or a bad debate night, but rarely by readiness. Far beyond viral luck, that night superior preparation met opportunity.

Tim Galbraith was the 1983 winner of the California-Nevada Lions Club Student Speakers Contest and volunteered for Reagan in 1984. He is a financial services executive in New York.

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More than 1,000 faith leaders endorse Harris as vice president leans on her faith to turn out Black voters

• October 27, 2024

(CNN) — More than a thousand religious leaders endorsed Kamala Harris on Sunday, bolstering the Democratic presidential nominee’s push to emphasize how faith is informing her campaign ahead of next week’s election.

Among those backing the vice president is the Rev. William J. Barber II, a North Carolina-based faith leader who has pushed the Biden administration to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“In a moment like this, I am compelled to be clear that every voter must make a choice, and my choice is to oppose the dangerous politics that (Donald) Trump and the MAGA movement have unleashed by supporting the ticket that can defeat this potential for American fascism,” Barber said in a statement to CNN while stressing that he was backing Harris in his personal capacity.

The endorsements come as Harris has been leaning on her faith – and her ties to Black faith communities – as she seeks to turn out Black voters in her closing pitch.

The vice president, who attended a Black Baptist church in Oakland growing up, appeared with her longtime pastor, the Rev. Amos C. Brown III of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, as part of a “souls to the polls” push in Georgia last weekend, a widespread effort to engage Black churchgoers in swing states.

And in comments at a Black church in West Philadelphia on Sunday, Harris “will continue to emphasize the importance of putting faith into action this campaign,” according to a senior campaign official.

Harris has alluded to faith throughout her campaign. The vice president said during a CNN town hall last week that after President Joe Biden called her this summer to say he would no longer seek reelection, she called Brown, seeking advice and prayer. Asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether she prays every day, Harris said she does.

“Sometimes twice a day,” she said. “I was raised to believe in a loving God, to believe that your faith is a verb.”

Former President Donald Trump has also sought to court religious voters and encourage White evangelicals, longtime allies of the Republican Party, to vote. After the former president survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July – where one rally attendee was killed – Trump and his supporters argued he was spared due to divine intervention.

In his pitch to faith voters, Trump has argued that he would protect religious liberties and highlighted his appointment of three conservatives to the US Supreme Court, which paved the way for overturning federal abortion protections. Trump will also address a National Faith Advisory Board summit in Georgia on Monday.

While campaigning in North Carolina last week, Trump argued, without evidence, that Harris is “very destructive to religion” as he addressed a group of religious leaders.

In Michigan, the former president has sought support from Muslim leaders as part of his bid to appeal to Muslim and Arab American voters disillusioned with Harris over the Biden administration’s approach to Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump invited several Muslim leaders onstage during a rally in suburban Detroit on Saturday.

“Jews, Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons, Muslims are joining our cause in larger numbers than ever before and now the most wonderful thing is happening. We’re winning overwhelming support from the Muslim and Arab voters right here in Michigan. Can you believe this?” the former president said.

Barber, who participated in a vigil outside the White House last fall to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, has persistently raised concerns about how Democrats more broadly ignore talking about poor and low-wage workers to instead focus on the middle class. But he told CNN the present moment calls for clarity.

“There’s no middle ground when it comes to fascism,” Barber, the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said in an interview. “There just comes a point that you have to say, ‘I’ve got to be clear as an individual and hope that other moral and religious leaders will do the same.’”

For those faith leaders withholding support for Harris over the administration’s response to the Middle East conflict, Barber said they should ask themselves, “Who do you trust to be able to talk to and negotiate with?”

Some of the other faith leaders endorsing Harris on Sunday in their personal capacities include the Rev. Kevin R. Johnson, senior pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City; Rev. Teresa L. Smallwood, vice president and dean of academic affairs at United Lutheran Seminary in North Carolina; and the Rev. Andrea C. White, associate professor of theology and culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

The “Souls to the Polls” initiative is being led by the Harris campaign’s National Advisory Board of Black Faith Leaders, which has served as a sounding board for the vice president and an organizing force in various cities where members have influence.

Reached by phone Saturday after landing in Michigan, Bishop Leah Daughtry, a member of the advisory board, said faith leaders are fanned out across the country making the case for the Democratic nominee.

Harris’ faith “undergirds all of her policy initiatives,” Daughtry said.

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Harris and Trump offer worlds-apart contrasts on top issues in presidential race

• October 27, 2024

By Josh Boak, Jill Colvin and Seung Min Kim | Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Voters in this year’s presidential election are choosing between two conflicting visions of the United States offered by Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. The outcome will affect how the country sees itself and how it’s viewed across the world, with repercussions that could echo for decades.

Since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, Harris has pledged to blaze her own path forward. But many of the vice president’s ideas are well trod by Biden: middle-class tax cuts, tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, a restoration of abortion rights, a government that aggressively addresses climate change. and a commitment to uphold democratic values and the rule of law.

Trump has pledged retaliation against rivals as he pushes to fulfill an agenda sidetracked during his previous term by the global pandemic. The former president wants to undertake a mass deportation of migrants who are living in the United States illegally, extend and expand his 2017 tax cuts, greatly increase tariffs and offer more support for fossil fuels and less support for renewable energy. He has attacked transgender rights and pledged to end Russia’s war with Ukraine while suggesting Ukraine must make territorial concessions. He also is seeking to concentrate more government power within the White House.

The candidates have spelled out their ideas in speeches, advertisements and other venues. Both say that their approach would do more to lift up workers, the middle class and the promises that have defined America. While Trump and Harris agree on not taxing workers’ tips, the similarities largely stop there — a further sign of how the election’s outcome could reshape the country.

A look at where each candidate stands on 10 top issues:

Abortion

HARRIS: She has called on Congress to pass legislation guaranteeing abortion access in federal law, a right that stood for nearly 50 years before being overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022. She has campaigned on how the patchwork of state laws limiting abortion have hurt women’s access to medical care, in one prominent case leading to the death in Georgia of Amber Nicole Thurman.

Harris has promoted the administration’s efforts short of federal law, including steps to protect women who travel to access the procedure and limit how law enforcement collects medical records. Her argument to the public is rooted in the concept of freedom, saying “the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body should not be made by the government.”

TRUMP: He often brags about nominating the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. After dodging questions about when in pregnancy he believed abortion should be restricted, Trump announced last spring that decisions on access and cutoffs should be left to the states. He has praised the patchwork of restrictions that have emerged across Republican-led states, saying the people are deciding.

He has said he would not sign a national abortion ban into law and would not try to block access to abortion medication, after initially waffling. He told Time magazine that it should also be left up to states to determine whether to prosecute women for abortions or to monitor their pregnancies, but he has not rejected the idea outright. He has said that, if he wins, he wants to make in vitro fertilization treatment free for women. He has even claimed that he is the “father” of the treatment, first used in 1978, even though it has only come under threat because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Climate and energy

HARRIS: She has done something of an about-face, saying in her campaign that it’s possible to continue hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuels even as she embraces policies that favor renewable energy resources. Republicans are quick to point out that Harris opposed offshore drilling and fracking during her short-lived campaign for the 2020 presidential nomination.

As a senator from California, Harris was an early sponsor of the Green New Deal, a sweeping series of proposals meant to swiftly move the U.S. to fully green energy. It was a plan championed by the Democratic Party’s most progressive wing. But during her tenure as vice president, Harris has adopted more moderate positions, focusing on implementing the climate provisions of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. That provided nearly $375 billion for things such as financial incentives for electric cars and clean energy projects.

The Biden administration has also enlisted more than 20,000 young people in a national Climate Corps, a Peace Corps-like program to promote conservation through projects such as weatherizing homes and repairing wetlands. Despite that, it’s unlikely that the U.S. will be on track to meet Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

TRUMP: His mantra for one of his top policy priorities: “DRILL, BABY, DRILL.” Trump, who in the past said climate change was a “hoax” and harbors a particular disdain for wind power, says it’s his goal for the U.S. to have the cheapest energy and electricity in the world. He has claimed he will cut prices in half within a year of his potential return to office. While he often criticizes the Biden administration for its policies, domestic oil production has already been at near-record highs since late 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Trump wants to push that higher by increasing oil drilling on public lands, offering tax breaks to oil, gas and coal producers, speeding the approval of natural gas pipelines, opening dozens of new power plants, including nuclear facilities, and rolling back the Biden administration’s aggressive efforts to get people to switch to electric cars, which he argues have a place but shouldn’t be forced on consumers. He has also pledged to re-exit the Paris climate agreement, end wind subsidies and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden administration targeting energy-inefficient kinds of lightbulbs, stoves, dishwashers and shower heads.

Democracy and the rule of law

HARRIS: Like Biden, Harris has decried Trump as a threat to the nation’s democracy. She has agreed with former Trump administration officials who labeled him a “fascist.”

Harris has leaned more heavily into her personal background as a prosecutor and contrasted that with Trump being found guilty of 34 felony counts in a New York hush money case and being found liable for fraudulent business practices and sexual abuse in civil court. Harris initially talked less frequently than Biden did about Trump’s denial of his 2020 loss and his incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. But in the closing weeks of the 2024 campaign, she increasingly has framed the prospect of another Trump term as “dangerous.”

TRUMP: After refusing to accept that Biden won, Trump hasn’t committed to accepting the 2024 results. He’s repeatedly promised to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants jailed for assaulting police officers and other crimes during the attack on the Capitol, and recently threatened to jail lawyers, election officials, donors and others “involved in unscrupulous behavior” surrounding November’s vote. He has lashed out at media organizations, threatening their broadcast licenses in response to debate questions and coverage he’s deemed unfair.

Trump has called his Democratic rivals the “enemy within” who are “more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.” He pledges to overhaul the Justice Department and FBI “from the ground up,” aggrieved by the criminal charges the department has brought against him. He promises to deploy the National Guard to cities such as Chicago that are struggling with violent crime and in response to protests, and has also pledged to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Biden.

Federal government

HARRIS: Like Biden, Harris has campaigned hard against “Project 2025″ — a plan that Trump has denounced but that was written by leading conservatives and many of his former administration officials.

The plan lays out how to move as swiftly as possible to dramatically remake the federal government and push it to the right if Trump wins the White House. She is also part of an administration that is taking steps to make it harder for any mass firings of civil servants to happen. In April, the Office of Personnel Management issued a new rule that would ban federal workers from being reclassified as political appointees or other at-will employees, thus making them easier to dismiss. That was in response to Schedule F, a 2020 executive order from Trump that reclassified tens of thousands of federal workers to make firing them easier.

TRUMP: The former president has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, despite his close ties to many of its key architects. He has nonetheless pledged to undertake his own overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, which he has long blamed for blocking his first-term agenda, saying: “I will totally obliterate the deep state.” He plans to reissue the Schedule F order stripping civil service protections. He says he would then act to fire “rogue bureaucrats,” including those who ”weaponized our justice system,” and the “warmongers and America-Last globalists in the Deep State, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the national security industrial complex.”

Trump has pledged to terminate the Education Department and wants to curtail the independence of regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission. As part of his effort to cut government waste and red tape, he has promised to eliminate at least 10 federal regulations for every new one imposed.

Immigration

HARRIS: Trying to defuse GOP criticism, Harris has said she would sign into law a bipartisan Senate compromise killed by Republican lawmakers at Trump’s request. It would have toughened asylum standards and meant more border agents, immigration judges and asylum officers. She said she would bring back that bill and sign it, saying that Trump “talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk” on immigration.

Harris likes to talk up her experience as California attorney general, saying she walked drug smuggler tunnels and successfully prosecuted gangs that moved narcotics and people across the U.S.-Mexico border. Early in his term, Biden made Harris his administration’s point person on the root causes of migration. Trump and top Republicans now blame Harris for a situation at that border, which they say is out of control due to policies that were too lenient. Harris has endorsed a comprehensive immigration overhaul, seeking paths to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. without legal status, with a faster track for young immigrants living in the country illegally who arrived as children.

TRUMP: He has returned to the harsh immigration rhetoric that marked his previous campaigns. He promises to mount the largest domestic deportation in U.S. history, an operation that could involve detention camps and the National Guard. He would bring back policies he put in place during his first term, like the Remain in Mexico program and Title 42, which placed curbs on migrants on public health grounds. He has called for the death penalty for any migrant who kills a U.S. citizen.

Trump would revive and expand the travel ban that originally targeted citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. After the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel, Trump pledged new “ideological screening” for immigrants to bar “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs.” He would try to deport people who are in the U.S. legally but harbor “jihadist sympathies.” He would seek to end birthright citizenship for people born in the U.S. whose parents are both in the country illegally.

Israel and Gaza

HARRIS: Harris says Israel has a right to defend itself, and she’s repeatedly decried Hamas as a terrorist organization. But the vice president might have helped defuse some backlash from progressives by being more vocal about the need to better protect civilians during fighting in Gaza.

More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count, but says that women and children make up just over half of the dead. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.

Like Biden, Harris supports a proposed hostage-for-extended cease-fire deal that aims to bring all remaining hostages and Israeli dead home. Biden and Harris say the deal could lead to a permanent end to the war and they have endorsed a two-state solution, which would have Israel existing alongside an independent Palestinian state. But Biden is also confronting the prospect of a widening conflict in Lebanon and attacks by Iran even as they both see Israel’s recent killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a reason for a cease-fire to be more likely.

TRUMP: He has expressed support for Israel’s efforts to “destroy” Hamas, but he’s also been critical of some of Israel’s tactics. He says the country must finish the job quickly and get back to peace. He has called for more aggressive responses to pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses and applauded police efforts to clear encampments. Trump also proposes to revoke the student visas of those who espouse antisemitic or anti-American views and deport those who support Hamas.

LGBTQ+ issues

HARRIS: During her rallies, Harris accuses Trump and his party of seeking to roll back a long list of freedoms, including the ability “to love who you love openly and with pride.” She leads audiences in chants of “We’re not going back.”

While her campaign has yet to produce specifics on its plans, she has been part of a Biden administration that regularly denounces discrimination and attacks against the LGBTQ+ community. Early in Biden’s term, his administration reversed an executive order from Trump that had largely banned transgender people from military service. His Education Department issued a rule that says Title IX, the 1972 law protecting women’s rights, also bars discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. That rule was silent on the issue of transgender athletes.

TRUMP: He has pledged to keep transgender women out of women’s sports and says he will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that “only two genders,” as determined at birth, are recognized by the United States. He promises to “defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology.”

As part of his crackdown on gender-affirming care, he would declare that any health care provider participating in the “chemical or physical mutilation of minor youth” no longer meets federal health and safety standards and is barred from receiving federal money. He would take similarly punitive steps in schools against any teacher or school official who “suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body.”

Trump would support a national prohibition of hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender minors and bar transgender people from military service.

NATO and Ukraine

HARRIS: The vice president has yet to specify how her positions on Russia’s war with Ukraine might differ from Biden’s, other than to praise his efforts to rebuild alliances unraveled by Trump, particularly NATO, the military alliance that is a critical bulwark against Russian aggression.

The Biden administration has pledged unceasing support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Washington has sent tens of billions of dollars in military and other aid to Ukraine, including $61 billion in weapons, ammunition and other assistance that is expected to last through the end of this year. The government has also reached an agreement with allies to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan — with $20 billion from the United States — that would be backed by frozen Russian financial assets.

The administration has maintained that continuing U.S. assistance is critical because Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not stop at invading Ukraine. Harris has said previously that it would be foolish to risk global alliances the U.S. has established and decried Putin’s “brutality.”

TRUMP: The former president has repeatedly taken issue with U.S. aid to Ukraine and says he will continue to “fundamentally reevaluate” the mission and purpose of the NATO alliance if he returns to office. He has claimed, without explanation, that he will be able to end the war before his inauguration by bringing both sides to the negotiating table. (His approach seems to hinge on Ukraine giving up at least some of its Russian-occupied territory in exchange for a cease-fire.)

On NATO, he has assailed member nations for years for failing to meet agreed-upon military spending targets. Trump drew alarms this year when he said that, as president, he had warned leaders that he would not only refuse to defend nations that don’t hit those targets, but that he also “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are “delinquent.”

Tariffs and trade

HARRIS: The Biden-Harris administration has tried to boost trade with allies in Europe, Asia and North America, while using tariffs and other targeted tools to go after rivals such as China. The Democratic administration kept Trump’s tariffs on China in place, while adding a ban on exporting advanced computer chips to that country and providing incentives to boost U.S. industries.

In May, the administration specifically targeted China with increased tariffs on electric vehicles and steel and aluminum, among other products.

TRUMP: He wants a dramatic expansion of tariffs on nearly all imported foreign goods, saying that “we’re going to have 10% to 20% tariffs on foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years.” He has suggested tariffs of 100% or more on Chinese goods. He treats these taxes as a way to fund other tax cuts, lower the deficit and possibly fund child care — though economists say the tariffs could raise prices for consumers without generating the revenues Trump promises.

Trump would urge Congress to pass legislation giving the president authority to impose a reciprocal tariff on any country that imposes one on the U.S. Much of his trade agenda has focused on China. Trump has proposed phasing out Chinese imports of essential goods including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals and wants to ban Chinese companies from owning U.S. infrastructure in sectors such as energy, technology and farmland.

Taxes

HARRIS: With much of the 2017 tax overhaul expiring at end of next year, Harris is pledging tax cuts for more than 100 million working and middle class households. In addition to preserving some of the expiring cuts, she wants to make permanent a tax credit of as much as $3,600 per child and offer a special $6,000 tax credit for new parents.

Harris says her administration would expand tax credits for first-time homebuyers and would push to build 3 million new housing units in four years, while wiping out taxes on tips and endorsing tax breaks for entrepreneurs. Like Biden, she wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% and the corporate minimum tax to 21%. The current corporate rate is 21% and the corporate minimum, raised under the Inflation Reduction Act, is at 15% for companies making more than $1 billion a year. But Harris would not increase the capital gains tax as much as Biden had proposed on investors with more than $1 million in income.

TRUMP: Trump has promised a slew of new tax cuts aimed at groups he has been trying to win over this election, including eliminating taxes on tips received by workers — a policy later embraced by Harris, who would also raise the minimum wage for tipped workers. Trump wants to eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits and taxes on overtime pay, and has pledged to make interest on car loans tax-deductible like mortgage payments -– but only for cars built in the U.S.

The former president has promised to extend and even expand all of the 2017 tax cuts that he signed into law, while also paying down the debt. He has proposed cutting the overall corporate tax rate to 15% from 21%, but only for companies that make their products in the U.S. He would repeal any tax increases signed into law by Biden. He also aims to gut some of the tax breaks that Biden put into law to encourage the development of renewable energy and EVs.

He wants to lower the cost of housing by opening up federal land to development. Outside analyses suggest that Trump’s ideas would do much more to increase budget deficits than what Harris would do, without delivering the growth needed to minimize any additional debt.

​ Orange County Register 

Analysis: Iran faces tough choices in deciding how to respond to Israeli strikes

• October 27, 2024

By Adam Schreck | Associated Press

JERUSALEM — It’s Iran’s move now.

How the Islamic Republic chooses to respond to the unusually public Israeli aerial assault on its homeland could determine whether the region spirals further toward all-out war or holds steady at an already devastating and destabilizing level of violence.

In the coldly calculating realm of Middle East geopolitics, a strike of the kind that Israel delivered before dawn Saturday would typically be met with a forceful response.

Retaliating militarily would allow Iran’s clerical leadership to show strength not only to its own citizens but also to Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the militant groups battling Israel that are the vanguard of Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance.

It is too soon to say whether Iran’s leadership will follow that path.

Tehran may opt to hold back from forcefully retaliating directly for now, not least because doing so might reveal its weaknesses and invite a more potent Israeli response, analysts say.

“Iran will play down the impact of the strikes, which are in fact quite serious,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House.

She said Iran is “boxed in” by military and economic constraints, and the uncertainty caused by the U.S. election and its impact on American policy in the region.

Even while the Mideast wars rage, Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signaling his nation wants a new nuclear deal with the U.S. to ease crushing international sanctions.

A carefully worded statement from Iran’s military issued Saturday night appeared to offer some wiggle room for the Islamic Republic to back away from further escalation. It suggested that a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon was more important than any retaliation against Israel.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ultimate decision-maker, was also measured in his first comments on the strike Sunday. He said the attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” and he stopped short of calling for an immediate military response.

Saturday’s strikes targeted Iranian air defense missile batteries and missile production facilities, according to the Israeli military.

With that, Israel has exposed vulnerabilities in Iran’s air defenses and can still step up its attacks, analysts say.

Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press indicate Israel’s raid damaged facilities at the Parchin military base southeast of Tehran that experts previously linked to Iran’s onetime nuclear weapons program and another base tied to its ballistic missile program.

Current nuclear facilities were not struck, however. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed that on X, saying “Iran’s nuclear facilities have not been impacted.”

Israel has been aggressively bringing the fight to the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, killing its leader and targeting operatives in an audacious exploding pager attack.

“Any Iranian attempt to retaliate will have to contend with the fact that Hezbollah, its most important ally against Israel, has been significantly degraded and its conventional weapons systems have twice been largely repelled,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, who expects Iran to hold its fire for now.

That’s true even if Israel held back, as appears to be the case. Some prominent figures in Israel, such as opposition leader Yair Lapid, are already saying the attacks didn’t go far enough.

Regional experts suggested that Israel’s relatively limited target list was intentionally calibrated to make it easier for Iran to back away from escalation.

As Yoel Guzansky, who formerly worked for Israel’s National Security Council and is now a researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, put it: Israel’s decision to focus on purely military targets “allows them to save face.”

Israel’s target choices may also be a reflection at least in part of its capabilities. It is unlikely able to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities on its own and would require help from the United States, Guzansky said.

Besides, Israel still has leverage to go after higher-value targets should Iran retaliate — particularly now that nodes in its air defenses have been destroyed.

“You preserve for yourself all kinds of contingency plans,” Guzansky said.

Thomas Juneau, a University of Ottawa professor focused on Iran and the wider Middle East, wrote on X that the fact that Iranian media initially downplayed the strikes suggests Tehran may want to avoid further escalation. Yet it faces a dilemma.

“If it retaliates, it risks an escalation in which its weakness means it loses more,” he wrote. “If it does not retaliate, it projects a signal of weakness.”

Vakil agreed that Iran’s response was likely to be muted and that the strikes were designed to minimize the potential for escalation

“Israel has yet again shown its military precision and capabilities are far superior to that of Iran,” she said.

One thing is certain: The Mideast is in uncharted territory.

For decades, leaders and strategists in the Middle East leaders have speculated about if and how Israel might one day openly strike Iran, just as they wondered what direct attacks by Iran, rather than by its proxy militant groups, would look like.

Today, it’s a reality. Yet the playbook on either side isn’t clear, and may still be being written.

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“There appears to be a major mismatch both in terms of the sword each side wields and the shield it can deploy,” Vaez said.

“While both sides have calibrated and calculated how quickly they climb the escalation ladder, they are in an entirely new territory now, where the new red lines are nebulous and the old ones have turned pink,” he said.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Adam Schreck, the Asia-Pacific news director for The Associated Press, spent years covering the Mideast and has reported from countries across the region, including both Iran and Israel.

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers’ strong start to be tested on 5-game trip after putting ‘the league on notice’

• October 27, 2024

LOS ANGELES — The Lakers haven’t started a season this well in more than a decade.

Their early-season momentum will be tested with their longest out-of-state trip of the season (a six-game trek this winter includes road games against Golden State and the Clippers), starting with Monday’s matchup against the Phoenix Suns at Footprint Center.

After the game against the Suns, the Lakers will play the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday, the Toronto Raptors on Friday and the Detroit Pistons on Nov. 4 before closing the trip against the Memphis Grizzlies on Nov. 6.

“I like where our team is,” Anthony Davis said. “Obviously, there’s a lot that we can clean up on both ends of the floor. But we’ll take the wins. I’d rather be able to clean up things with the win than over a loss.

“It’s been a tough three games, obviously, with three premier teams in the West. And we’ve been able to hold our own and put the league on notice that we’re a different team.”

Davis has been at the center of the Lakers’ early success, with home victories over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday, the Suns on Friday and the Sacramento Kings on Saturday.

The 31-year-old All-Star big man is averaging 34 points on 57.1% shooting from the field to go with 11 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.3 blocked shots and 1.7 steals, taking advantage of Coach JJ Redick making him a consistent focal point of the team’s offensive attack. He is getting to the free-throw line 15 times per game and shooting 80% there.

With his 31-point performance against the Kings, Davis became the fourth Laker to start a season with three consecutive 30-point performances, joining Elgin Baylor, Jerry West and Kobe Bryant.

“He is the main focal point for us offensively and defensively,” teammate LeBron James said. “And we got to make sure we continue to get him involved. He coaching staff and JJ, they do a great job of always putting him in positions where him being a recipient of the offense.

“And when A.D. has it going, it’s our job as the ball handlers to continue to feed [him], find [him].”

The Lakers’ start is a dramatic shift from recent seasons in which they struggled through slow starts.

They didn’t pick up their third win last season until their fifth game then lost the following three. The Lakers’ third win in 2022-23 didn’t come until their 13th game. Their third win in 2021-22 didn’t come until their sixth game of that season.

The Lakers’ 3-0 record is their best start since 2010-11, when they started 8-0.

“I told you guys before the season [started], last year we kind of messed around like you guys saw,” forward Rui Hachimura said. “Just the lineup, everything like injuries and all that. And we didn’t have the mindset of ‘OK, let’s take No. 1 in West.’ We didn’t have the mindset. But I think [we’ve had] that since we started training camp.”

Even though their record is unblemished, the Lakers’ on-court performances can be crisper.

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They had to erase a 22-point deficit to beat the Suns in their first matchup and relinquished a 15-point lead against the Kings before James and Davis spearheaded a comeback in the fourth.

“It’s a process still for us,” James said. “We’re still learning. We want to continue to get better and better every night and I think through three games we did that.

“But it’s going to be a tough road trip for us coming in. Eleven days, five games. There are some tough opponents. So, it will be a test for us.”

LAKERS at SUNS

When: Monday, 7 p.m.

Where: Footprint Center, Phoenix

TV/radio: NBA TV, Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM

​ Orange County Register