Dodgers’ Ohtani expected to play in World Series Game 3

• October 27, 2024

NEW YORK — The Dodgers have hoped for the best on injuries all season only to be disappointed many times.Maybe not this time.

Sources with the team confirmed that Shohei Ohtani recovered well Sunday — “shockingly well,” one source said — from the partial dislocation of his left shoulder suffered during Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night.

Ohtani was examined by doctors Sunday morning before heading to New York.

With an off day Sunday, it’s possible Ohtani could be in the Dodgers’ lineup for Game 3 on Monday at Yankee Stadium. According to one report, the Dodgers’ slugger has been cleared to play, manager Dave Roberts told ESPN in a text message Sunday. Roberts was set to speak to media at Yankee Stadium later Sunday.

Ohtani was injured sliding into second base when he was caught stealing to end the seventh inning of Saturday night’s 4-2 victory in Game 2 at Dodger Stadium.

Ohtani clutched his left forearm after being tagged by shortstop Anthony Volpe for the final out in the seventh on a feetfirst slide. He laid near the bag for a couple minutes before being tended to by trainers and leaving the field.

Roberts said on Saturday night that Ohtani “had a little left shoulder subluxation” and would get image testing either Saturday night or Sunday. Roberts said after the game he was encouraged that Ohtani had good strength and range of motion in the shoulder, but the team needed to see the results of his scans before knowing his status.

The Dodgers hold a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Series and is two wins shy of its second championship in five years.

The Japanese slugger — and presumptive National League MVP — was 0 for 3 with a walk in Game 2. He is 1 for 8 in the first two games of the Fall Classic and is batting .260 with three home runs and 10 RBIs in his first postseason in the majors.

Ohtani had been one of the few players on the Dodgers roster who got through the season without a major injury. The pitching staff has been beset by injuries, with nearly every member of the starting rotation spending time on the injured list.

Among the position players, Mookie Betts was out for nearly two months due to a broken left hand, and Max Muncy was out nearly half the season due to a right oblique strain. Freddie Freeman is playing in the postseason with a badly sprained right ankle.

Ohani has not pitched this year but became the first player in major league history with at least 50 homers and 50 stolen bases in a season.

Content from The Associated Press is included in this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Anaheim Halloween Parade marks 100 years

• October 27, 2024

For 100 years, the Anaheim Halloween Parade has put residents in the spirit.

The parade marched through downtown on Saturday night marking its centennial year, with crowds cheering and waiving from where they lined the route. Community groups and dignitaries, local schools and law enforcement all participated.

Many of the floats are throwbacks to earlier entries, recreated by volunteers who have helped in the last several years return the parade to showcase event.

The parade Saturday followed the annual Fall Festival on Center Street Promenade, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year.

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​ Orange County Register 

Tariffs should only be used sparingly and constitutionally

• October 26, 2024

Tariffs have become a huge issue in the presidential campaign. Last week, former President Trump recounted a phone conversation he had with French President Macron in 2019.  France had just passed a digital tax—imposed on those companies (mostly American like Amazon) that sold to customers in France through the internet. As President Trump told it, he called President Macron to say that in retaliation, he, President Trump, would impose a 100% tariff on imported French wines—and Macron immediately backed down.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden asked Congress for authority to impose a tariff on all goods imported from Russia. Congress overwhelmingly approved granting Biden that power; he used it, and Russian imports dropped 50% in a single year.

Tariffs certainly can work as a valuable threat in nations’  bilateral negotiations, though it was improbable that the threat of selling less caviar to Americans would dampen Putin’s expansionary designs on Ukraine. (The loss of sales by French wine exporters caused by a doubling of the price of each bottle, however, was politically insufferable to Macron.)

Nevertheless, each instance broke America’s promises under the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) treaty. The U.S., France, and Russia are all members of the WTO. As a member, America has agreed not to increase tariffs on another WTO member except in specific narrow circumstances, none of which applied. The one that came closest allows a tariff when imports challenge the survival of an industry important to American national security. However, punishing Russia, not protecting a domestic industry vital for America’s security, was clearly the purpose of Biden’s action.

Is it ever permissible for America knowingly to break its international trade agreements?  If so, should Congress or the president make the decision?

The whole idea of the WTO was to take away the tactic of threatening tariffs that could lead to trade wars. Trade wars do the greatest damage to a country that is targeted and does not retaliate. They do the next most damage to both countries who participate in imposing ever-higher tariffs on each other. They do least damage when they are constrained to a proportionate response, after a hearing before a WTO panel. President Trump, and President Biden, however, each felt he had to act quickly, to forestall a trade war (precipitated by the threatened French digital tax) or to stop a real war from continuing (Ukraine).

France could appeal Trump’s wine tariff to the WTO, and would likely eventually win, but Trump knew the pressure Macron would feel in the interim. So he ignored the WTO. Biden probably didn’t care if Russia chose to appeal to the WTO. Such a hearing on the world stage would allow the US to present evidence of how Russia’s massive human rights violations constituted a threat to our own national security. We might eventually lose that argument to Russia, but Putin had no percentage in raising it.

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The second question focuses on the fact that Biden had Congress behind him and, while Trump might have, he  didn’t ask. The US Constitution unambiguously gives Congress the authority to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.”  In the case of a declared emergency, Congress has given the president the right to block imports entirely, but Congress has not conceded its general tariff power to the president. However, a threat by Trump to block the importation of all French wine in order to help Amazon would not have been credible (American oenophiles would have risen in revolt); but doubling the price of a bottle of French wine might actually have won Trump votes (at least in Temecula), while making French wine even more of a luxury. Still, he should have asked for Congress’ approval.

All nations sometimes break commitments they make to other nations. America should do so sparingly and constitutionally, in order to preserve the credibility of our word and encourage resort to international dispute resolution.

Tom Campbell is a professor of law and of economics at Chapman University. He has taught international trade law at Stanford Law School, where he was a tenured professor. He served in the US Congress for five terms, including on the international relations, joint economic, and judiciary committees.

​ Orange County Register 

For some OC congressional candidates, the abortion debate’s pivot to IVF treatment is personal

• October 26, 2024

Turn on a TV, and you’re sure to be instantaneously hit with a campaign ad. And chances are, it’s about abortion.

But this election cycle, the conversation — and attack ads as well — has pivoted. It’s not just abortion that candidates are being asked to address, but reproductive health care more broadly, particularly access to fertility treatments.

Related links

Orange County Register’s November 5, 2024 General Election Voter Guide
In the race for Rep. Michelle Steel’s seat, how abortion is shaping up to be a key issue
Republicans are trying a new approach to abortion in the race for Congress
Southern California responds to Supreme Court dismantling Roe v. Wade

“We’ve certainly been wanting candidates to talk about their positions on sexual and reproductive health care and the full scope of what that means,” said Jennifer Wonnacott, with Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.

Across the six congressional races in Orange County, nearly every candidate said they would work to protect access to in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments if elected, when asked in a questionnaire by the Register.

And for some, it’s a deeply personal issue.

Rep. Michelle Steel is the Republican incumbent in California’s 45th congressional district, one of the most closely watched races in the nation this cycle — and she’s also a mother of two. She turned to IVF, she said in a campaign ad, when she and her husband struggled to start a family.

“For us, it was a miracle,” Steel said in the 30-second spot. “And today, we are blessed with two wonderful daughters.”

For Joe Kerr, it was IVF that brought him his son, Joey.

“Without access to fertility treatments and conception alternatives like IVF, I would not have my son,” Kerr, a Democrat vying for California’s 40th congressional district, said. “I would not have a family.”

“I am a grandma because of IVF,” said Rep. Young Kim, the incumbent in CA-40.

There are myriad reasons why access to fertility treatments — as opposed to just abortion — has become somewhat of a flashpoint this election cycle: the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed states to ban abortion; the Alabama Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that caused hospitals to halt IVF treatments until a new law could be passed; both presidential candidates weighing in on access to fertility treatments, particularly IVF.

“No issue exists on an island,” said Dan Schnur, a former campaign consultant who teaches about political messaging at UC Berkeley and USC. “Once a discussion starts about how to handle a particular policy matter, it naturally grows to encompass other related policy areas, too.”

“If a candidate is talking about the economy, it’s difficult for them to limit the conversation to just jobs or taxes or inflation because they’re all moving pieces of a broader whole,” he added. “The same thing exists in this issue area.”

For women younger than 30, abortion has emerged as a top issue, according to a recent survey by KFF, a health policy organization that surveyed voters across the country last month.

It was an important topic for voters, too, in the 2022 midterm elections, but this is the first presidential race since the Supreme Court issued its ruling changing the landscape for abortion access. And in those two years, just how that ruling has impacted other health care decisions, like fertility treatments, has been on full display.

“Two years ago, congressional candidates in both parties were talking about these issues, but they weren’t being asked to out-shout (former President Donald) Trump or (Vice President Kamala) Harris,” said Schnur. “A candidate running in a competitive House district is going to be trying to appeal to much different voters than Harris or Trump at the national level. Sometimes their messages are the same, but often they’re not, especially on issues like these.”

Trump has said he supports access to fertility treatments and has vowed that the government would either pay for treatments like IVF or mandate that insurance companies cover them.

Orange County’s Republican congressional candidates, too, particularly in tight races, have promised to support access to treatments.

“I support access to IVF and believe this should be an issue left to each state to determine appropriate guidelines for health and safety,” said Scott Baugh, a candidate in California’s 47th congressional district, one of the most closely watched races in the nation.

Matt Gunderson, in the 49th congressional district, has campaigned as a pro-choice Republican. He said he believes abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” and women should be able to make their own health care choices.

“I am strongly opposed to any federal ban on IVF or abortion, as I believe that these decisions should remain in the hands of individuals, not the government,” Gunderson said. “It is essential to safeguard the rights and freedoms of women in making deeply personal choices about their own bodies and futures.”

And Steel, who has been in Congress since 2020, noted that she has co-sponsored legislation that would require private insurance plans to cover IVF and lead a resolution expressing support for the fertility treatment.

But her critics note that she had signed on to co-sponsor a bill that “declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being” and defines that as “including the moment of fertilization, cloning or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” She faced backlash for adding her name to the bill, that could threaten access to IVF, and she ultimately withdrew her name from it.

Derek Tran, the Democratic contender in the race for CA-45, said he believes Congress should ensure “necessary medical services are accessible and protected, allowing every woman to make decisions about her body and her family’s future without facing prohibitive barriers or inequities.”

“Right now, there are extremists in Congress who want politicians to make these kinds of personal medical decisions for women,” he said.

Rep. Mike Levin, the incumbent in the CA-49 race, noted that he brought an IVF doctor to the State of the Union earlier this year.

“I’m doing everything I can to draw attention to the anti-choice threat to IVF and fight that threat,” Levin said.

“Women deserve every right to determine what’s best for themselves, their bodies and their families, not the government,” said Rep. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana. “Fundamentally, these decisions, and a woman’s right to choose, are best left to a woman, her doctor and her God.”

Parmis Khatibi, a conservative voter and president of the California Women’s Leadership Association, said she’s looking for candidates to advocate for both women and children — throughout pregnancy and after birth. For her, that includes things like childcare assistance, mental health support fertility treatments.

“Financial concerns should not be the reason a woman decides to end the life of their unborn child,” Khatibi said. “I think we want (to see) a plan to restore hope in America’s promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all.”

Find all 12 candidates’ answers to our question about protections for fertility treatment — and how they weighed in on other issues like immigration, cost of living and artificial intelligence – on our Voter Guide.

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​ Orange County Register 

Susan Shelley: Democrats are back to crying ‘Hitler’

• October 26, 2024

This week, Kamala Harris stepped outside the door of the Naval Observatory, the official residence of the Vice president of the United States, to announce that she knows “who Donald Trump really is.”

There is “further evidence for the American people,” she said, “from the people who know him best.”

His family? His longtime business associates? The New York tabloids?

No. According to the vice president, the people who know him best are “the people who worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room.”

That seems unlikely.

This new evidence of “who Donald Trump really is” comes from John Kelly. He joined the Trump administration in 2017 as secretary of Homeland Security, then a few months later was named White House chief of staff. On Dec. 8, 2018, Trump announced that Kelly was out.

But Kelly certainly doesn’t hold a grudge over being fired. Not at all. It’s just that he happened to remember, two weeks before the 2024 election, that Trump admires Hitler.

“He said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had,” Kamala Harris intoned in her most serious voice.

Harris was repeating the story that Kelly told The Atlantic. One of the major investors in that publication is billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs, who happens to be Harris’s longtime friend and donor.

Kelly also told the story to The New York Times, a newspaper that won’t return the Pulitzer it won for reporting the completely false story that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. In actuality, that story was cooked up by the Hillary Clinton campaign, which was later fined by the Federal Election Commission for falsely reporting the fees it was charged for fabricating the story as if those bills were legal expenses.

Hillary was back at it this week, telling CNN that Trump’s upcoming New York rally, to be held at Madison Square Garden, is exactly like a pro-Nazi rally that was held at that venue by the German-American Bund on Feb. 20, 1939.

In mid-October, longtime Clinton family confidante and campaign advisor James Carville told CNN’s Jake Tapper that if he was advising the Harris campaign, he’d “have a flood of people say,” that Trump is “holding a rally in Madison Square Garden that, I’m sorry, is a mimic of a rally held on February 20, 1939, by the American Nazi Party. And we’ve got to quit being timid about making these connections that he is going out of his way to make.”

That’s exactly what happened. A week later, there was Kamala Harris in front of the official residence of the vice president of the United States, reading aloud, “It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans.” Harris called it “a window into who Donald Trump really is.”

“It gives us a window into how Donald Trump thinks,” former President Barack Obama said at a Harris campaign rally in Atlanta on Thursday, after repeating the John Kelly story about Trump wanting Hitler’s generals. Obama went on to list other former officials who worked for Trump (and were fired) and who now are happy to tell MSNBC that Trump is a “fascist.”

Trump flatly denied making the comments Kelly attributed to him, posting online that Kelly had “made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred!” The former president wrote, “This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb.”

Let me take you back to the spring of 2016, when first-time candidate Donald Trump was chosen by GOP primary voters over a busload of candidates with years or decades of government experience. Then in September, in the first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, Trump called Clinton’s endorsers “political hacks that I see that have led our country so brilliantly over the last 10 years with their knowledge,” adding, “Look at the mess that we’re in.”

So it shouldn’t surprise anybody that Trump didn’t always take the advice of the bipartisan “so brilliantly” crowd when he was in the White House, or that they want the former president to lose this election. If he’s re-elected on Nov. 5, many of those people will not have jobs in the government for at least another four years, and that’s their best-case scenario. For anyone who has been cashing in with corrupt or sketchy dealings, unemployment could be the least of their problems if Trump returns as the nation’s chief executive on Jan. 20.

Considering how little credibility these national security names had back in 2016, it’s not likely they’ll persuade many voters by becoming part of James Carville’s “flood of people” repeating the absurd talking point that Trump is copying Hitler. Trump was president for four years and the total absence of death camps, world wars and round-ups of political enemies was hard to miss.

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Apparently Trump was so busy moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and negotiating the Abraham Accords to bring normalized relations to Israel and its Arab neighbors that he completely forgot to invade Poland.

This all leaves one important question unanswered.

When the Democrats discover that calling Trump “Hitler” doesn’t convince anyone to vote for Kamala Harris, what next?

They could try calling him Lord Voldemort. Or Lex Luthor.

How about Professor Moriarty?

Snidely Whiplash? O.J. Simpson? Alan Brady from “The Dick Van Dyke Show”?

Face it, Hitler is a hard act to follow. Once a campaign starts calling its opponent and his supporters Nazis, it’s time to ring down the curtain. If the latest polls in the battleground states are correct, this show is over.

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

​ Orange County Register 

Larry Wilson: A storm brews from Mar-a-Lago

• October 26, 2024

To live in a world, the insane one that is our own, in which workers for a federal agency charged with bringing relief to victims of a devastating hurricane are threatened with their lives by gun-toting fellow countrymen who believe, egged on by an actually elected official, that one major political party creates the bad weather to be mean to them, is to despair.

And to witness the presidential candidate of the other major party not tell his partisans to get real but rather to see him gin up the crazies by also disparaging their relief work is to see that despair cubed.

That candidate was given the opportunity to at least act sane when he was asked whether it was a good idea to criticize hurricane relief workers after the Federal Emergency Management Agency was forced to pause work in the Carolinas because of threats from a militia.

The candidate responded by repeating the plain lie that the hurricane response was hampered because FEMA spent its budget helping people who crossed the border illegally.

It is true that no truckloads of bazookaed militias were ever found. But a North Carolina man faces a charge of “going armed to the terror of the public” after he threatened FEMA workers and was arrested in Rutherford County, North Carolina last week. The local sheriff said the weather denier had a rifle and handgun on him at the time of his arrest. He was immediately released on a $10,000 bond. Wonder what he’s up to tonight.

Criticism from the candidate who was there campaigning in the state and making up more stories? There was none.

It is also true that it was not the presidential candidate himself but rather his fervent supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, who said of the Democrats after Hurricane Helene swept her region: “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

Sure thing. So ridiculous.

In the next couple of days the lying grifter’s running mate went to Greene’s district to call her “a great friend of mine”  and told her constituents they had “another great, strong, woman leader in Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene … She’s a loyal person, and you guys have a hell of a congresswoman here in Marjorie.”

Hell of a congresswoman. The kind of person really sane, responsible American politicians would want to associate themselves with.

The scary buffoon of a presidential candidate allowed himself to be introduced at a campaign rally Wednesday by a scary buffoon of a former journalist, Tucker Carlson, who said a second administration would be like an angry father who would give  a “vigorous spanking” to his disobedient daughter, i.e. the rest of us Americans.

He said the country now was like a kid who’d “smear the contents of his diapers on the wall of your living room,” or a “hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter” who gives her parents the finger and slams her bedroom door.

But everything will be fine in the household, because “When Dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl, you’ve been a bad little girl … This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl.”

The crowd, as they say, went wild.

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If his surrogates are like bad weather personified, like steaming-hot Gulf waters brewing up a new kind of hurricane, the candidate himself is of course the storm. This past week saw two former key aides — both extremely conservative Republicans and top military leaders — literally call him “fascist.”

And it gets a bit personal when a man who would be president, in expressing his dislike for the press and its right to use confidential sources, says: “When this person realizes that he is going to be the bride of another prisoner shortly, he will say, ‘I’d very much like to tell you exactly who that was.”

“There is every reason to believe that Donald Trump would seek to use criminal enforcement and the FBI as leverage for his personal and political ends in a second term,” says — no, not me — says Peter Keisler, a founder of the Federalist Society.

Worth thinking about between now and Nov. 5.

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

​ Orange County Register 

Two historic Philadelphia churches offer lessons for an America divided today and in its infancy

• October 26, 2024

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — George Washington. Benjamin Franklin. Betsy Ross. The two Founding Fathers and the seamstress of the American flag all once worshipped on the now centuries-old wooden pews of Christ Church.

It’s the site of colonial America’s break with the Church of England — and where the U.S. Episcopal Church was born.

Less than a mile south, past Independence Hall, Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church stands on the oldest parcel of land continuously owned by Black Americans. It’s the mother church of the nation’s first Black denomination.

Two churches, across the centuries. Generations after their birth in this nation first envisioned in Philadelphia, both churches continue to serve as the spiritual home for hundreds in the city.

Choir members sing hymns at Christ Church in Philadelphia at a service on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

Church members see the role of their congregation as crucial, a beacon ahead of a contentious presidential election in Pennsylvania — the most pivotal of swing states. They also express concerns about political division that the Founding Fathers once feared could tear the nation apart.

“We’ve grown as a nation, but I think at this point, we’re at a standstill. We’re terribly divided,” said Christ Church parishioner Jeanette Morris. A registered Republican, she previously voted for former President Donald Trump, but plans to back Vice President Kamala Harris on Nov. 5 because of her support for reproductive rights. Morris is concerned about health issues following the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

“Nothing is getting done in Washington because nobody can agree on anything,” she said after a recent service. “I pray every Sunday that we can get past this all.”

Mother Bethel AME Church member Donna Matthews, center standing, claps next to her husband, Keith Matthews, during a service in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

Today’s list of divisive issues is long: from abortion and immigration to taxes, climate change and the wars abroad. It’s also the first presidential election since an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, an act of political violence steeped in the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

“I think things have changed: Slavery is abolished. The Civil Rights Act was put in place. But still, deep down, the denizens of the United States haven’t really come together,” says Keith Matthews, 61, a Mother Bethel AME parishioner. “There’s still a lot of hatred and misunderstanding amongst the races.”

The nation’s church was at the center of it all

At its infancy, the United States of America also was deeply divided. And some members of Christ Church — from Washington to the parish rector — seemed to be at the center of it all.

“What we’re going through right now is certainly unprecedented politically. And there’s a huge amount of potential instability and concern that a lot of people have in this church and the United States,” says Zack Biro, executive director of the Christ Church Preservation Trust. “And Christ Church is a perfect example of kind of weathering that storm.”

The Christ Church steeple, financed and built through a lottery spearheaded by Benjamin Franklin, rises into the sky in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

The church was founded in 1695 by a group of Philadelphia colonists as the first parish of the Church of England in Pennsylvania. Congregants later included slaves and their owners, loyalists and patriots. They listened to sermons favoring and opposing independence.

Anglican clergy loyal to the British king led weekly prayers for the monarch. But on July 4, 1776, Christ Church’s vestry crossed out the king’s name from the Book of Common Prayer — a defiant act of potential treason. The book is preserved today in an underground museum, a testament to the church’s revolutionary spirit on Independence Day.

“We tend to think that the early American republic was a time of great unity, but, like today, the political culture was deeply polarized,” says John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah University in Pennsylvania.

Christ Church congregants sing during a service in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

During the 1780s, Fea said via email, debate raged about how to apply revolutionary-era principles such as liberty or freedom to all Americans. From the pulpit, the Rev. Jacob Duché, the church’s rector, was seen as a moderate and led prayers as the first chaplain of the Continental Congress. But then he sided with the loyalists.

When the British occupied Philadelphia in 1777, the rector wrote a letter to Washington urging him to surrender and reach a deal with the British. After the letter became public, Duché traveled to England. Pennsylvania officials later labeled him a traitor and banned his reentry. His successor, the Rev. William White, became the first presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. He’s praised for keeping the unity of his congregation during times of turmoil.

Christ Church’s current senior pastor is the Rev. Samantha Vincent-Alexander, the first woman to serve as rector in its more than 300-year history.

“The idea of what do we do in this political environment right now and how do we deal with that is an incredible challenge,” she says. “Most of our congregations are not a unified voting bloc. They represent different people much like at the time of the American revolution.”

“We had people who were loyalists and people who supported independence, and the clergy at the time had to find a way to keep the congregation together.”

Congregant Andy Halstead prays during a service at Philadelphia’s Christ Church on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

Congregants remain proud of Christ Church’s crucial role in America’s freedom. But they also grapple with contradictions. Some church members traded slaves and are buried in the church yard near signers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin’s tomb is in the nearby Christ Church burial ground.

“While we’re very proud of our history, these people were not perfect. Sometimes we tend to think of them that way, but they weren’t,” says Harvey Bartle, a congregant for more than 30 years. “What they were doing is trying to promote democracy. … At least they advanced the ball beyond the divine right of kings, so that the society, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, could advance the system.”

Children look at the penny-covered gravestone of Benjamin Franklin at the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

One church member, Absalom Jones, attended services at a sister congregation while enslaved to a man serving in the church leadership. Jones bought his freedom and eventually became ordained by the Christ Church rector as the first Black priest of the Episcopal Church. He also went on to co-create the Free African Society of Philadelphia, which Fea says “sought to apply the rights secured from the American Revolution to the 2,000 or so free Black men and women living in the city at the time.”

Methodism was the fastest growing denomination in America in the 1790s. But some Methodist Episcopal Churches still segregated Black worshippers during services to the upstairs galleries. This prompted free Black Americans to start their own congregation.

A framed portrait of the Rev. Absalom Jones, who became ordained as the first Black priest of the Episcopal church, is displayed at the Christ Church Neighborhood House in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

Mother Bethel AME fought for freedom from the start

The African Methodist Episcopal Church has been involved in the struggle for freedom and equality from its roots.

Its founder, the Rev. Richard Allen, was born into slavery in Philadelphia in 1760 before buying his freedom in Delaware before he was 20. He returned to the city in the 1780s and became a minister.

After white leaders at a Methodist church segregated Allen, Jones and other Black worshippers to the upstairs galleries for a prayer service, the group left the church and formed what would eventually become Mother Bethel AME. The church became a place of refuge for Black people fleeing slavery along the Underground Railroad and later a major gathering point for the Civil Rights Movement.

By creating Mother Bethel, Allen “carved out a space where Black people could resist … at a time where during slavery in the Deep South, Black people could not even congregate without the presence of a white man in between them,” says Bethel AME’s pastor, the Rev. Mark Tyler.

Today, the AME Church has more than 2.5 million members and thousands of congregations in dozens of nations worldwide.

A statue of Mother Bethel AME Church founder stands on the oldest parcel of land continuously owned by Black Americans in Philadelphia on Oct 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)

“Certainly, we’ve made progress,” says Tyler, citing Kamala Harris’ campaign to become the country’s first Black female president. But he also believes that much more needs to be done to bridge America’s racial inequality and he worries about the potential of another Trump presidency. The AME Church, he says, has not “outlived its usefulness.”

“The fact that we have a person who openly embraces white supremacists, who has been president once and potentially could be president again in the 21st century, is all the evidence that you need to know that we still need places for Black people to come together and organize like the Black Church,” he says.

During a recent Sunday service, Tyler encouraged his congregation to vote. Some members later reflected on America’s beginnings and its progress and shortcomings.

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“Two things can be said at the same time: They were brilliant in the development of this nation. But they still carried slavery ideas, women were not allowed to vote, and that needed to be changed,” parishioner Donna Matthews said about the Founding Fathers.

“Who are ‘We the people’? I think people need to ask themselves that,” said Matthews, 63, who attended the service with her husband, Keith, and their young grandson, Ezekiel. “It’s everyone. And it’s the essence of why this church was started.”

At the end of the service, parishioner Tayza Hill, 25, led groups on a tour of the church’s museum. It preserves an original wooden pulpit used by the Rev. Allen and Black leaders including abolitionist Frederick Douglass and civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois when they addressed the congregation.

Hill says she has been hearing the same question in radio shows as the election approaches: “Is the sun rising, or is the sun setting on democracy?” She remains hopeful and believes the continuity of her church is vital.

“Seeing that there’s still a building that has the history and is continuously being told is important because it’s refusing to be erased from history,” Hill says. “As a nation and as a church, it’s really up to us to defend the rights and the respectability of those who are withheld the full opportunity of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

​ Orange County Register 

Conversations over property hint at changing dynamic

• October 26, 2024

As commercial real estate practitioners, we spend our days advising owners and occupants of locations. These may be office, retail or industrial.

I’ve expanded my trade industrially for over four decades in Orange County and the Inland Empire. Over time, I’ve seen some wild swings in market activity — also known as buying and leasing.

The early 90s were mired in a deep sleep caused by the invasion of Iraq and the savings and loan implosion. We dealt with tepid demand until the middle part of the decade when velocity returned. The dot-com bubble bursting and the financial adjustment of the early- and mid-2000s caused quite a ruckus as well.

What followed was a spate of activity like no other we’ve seen until, well, 2020-2022. Now, we sit with a lack of demand precipitated by uncertainty. Recall, I wrote about that last week .

Today, I’d like to discuss a simple way to figure in which way we’re headed — up or down — with the scale pushed in favor of occupants or owners.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that gauging the market isn’t just about looking at vacancy rates or rent trends, it’s about understanding the balance of power between owners and occupants.

A simple, albeit informal, method I’ve used is what I call the “Sentiment Index.” Essentially, it’s a measure of who feels the pain — or the confidence — more sharply: those with the space to lease or sell, or those seeking to occupy it.

Right now, what I’m seeing and hearing suggests the scales are tipping in favor of occupants.

How do I know? Conversations with landlords have turned from boastful pride to cautious consideration. When owners and their representatives are more eager to have a “productive chat” about lease terms, you know we’re moving into a phase where flexibility and concessions might be on the horizon.

Subtle shifts in conversations

In fact, these shifts in tone can often signal broader trends before the numbers catch up. Let me give you an example.

Back in the early 1990s, during what many in the industry refer to as the post-Savings & Loan era, the signs of a cooling market weren’t apparent in the stats just yet. But for those of us on the ground, it was clear as day.

What tipped us off? The tone of conversations with owners changed from assertive to inquisitive: “What’s happening out there?” took the place of “We’re holding firm at this price.”

Today, I’m noticing a similar shift.

In the Inland Empire, where logistics had been king over the last five years, conversations that were once about jockeying for the best price per square foot have turned into careful discussions on structuring deals that create longer-term value.

For example, some owners are asking about the implications of rent abatement periods or tenant improvement allowances — areas where, in stronger markets, the negotiation wasn’t as flexible.

Indicators beyond the numbers

But why focus so much on sentiment? Because market reports and metrics, while useful, can lag behind the reality on the street. When deals are being renegotiated, terms are becoming more flexible, and incentives are starting to creep back in, it suggests that demand is softening relative to supply. And that’s exactly what I’ve been noticing lately.

For example, last month, I saw a deal come together for a mid-sized logistics tenant in Riverside. The lease was inked at a rate that, six months ago, would have raised eyebrows among the ownership crowd. But with looming uncertainty, the landlord chose certainty of occupancy over a speculative holdout for higher rents. To me, that’s an early indicator of where we’re headed.

Window into demand dynamics

On the occupant side, I find their actions can tell us just as much about market direction. When they start negotiating harder on expansion options or holding off on committing to large leases, it’s clear they’re sensing future uncertainty.

Right now, I’m seeing this play out with clients in the Inland Empire who are recalibrating their growth strategies to align with supply chain volatility and interest rate hikes.

If you ask an occupant why they’re hesitating, they won’t often point to market reports. Instead, you’ll hear things like, “We’re waiting to see if interest rates stabilize,” or “We’re worried about carrying costs if demand slips.” These concerns are less about where the market is now and more about where it’s headed.

In commercial real estate, the market doesn’t always shout its intentions—it whispers them through subtle cues. Right now, the whispers are pointing to a delicate balance, one that could easily tip in favor of occupants if uncertainty persists. The key is listening closely and responding proactively.

So, if you’re trying to gauge market activity, don’t just look at the metrics. Tune in to the conversations and observe the changes in sentiment. Those shifts can tell you more about where the market is headed than a spreadsheet ever could.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at [email protected] or 714.564.7104. 

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​ Orange County Register