DeSantis ramps up executions as bid for president nears

• May 13, 2023

With his signing of a death warrant for Duane Owen on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis has now approved four executions in less than four months, ending a long drought where he didn’t condemn any murderers to die.

That move comes as DeSantis is on the verge of declaring a bid for the White House, raising the question of whether he’s attempting to boost his conservative bona fides, as even Democrats such as former Gov. Bob Graham have done in the past.

DeSantis has said that legal complications and the pandemic delayed him from signing death warrants for more than three years and that politics has nothing to do with it.

But state Sen. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando, contended it is “all part of his ambition to be the presidential nominee for the Republicans, to show that he’s tough on crime and he’s willing to impose the death penalty.”

DeSantis also signed two new bills into law that greatly expand the death penalty. One adds child sexual assault to the list of capital crimes, while another allows just eight of 12 jurors to sentence someone to die.

The governor’s expansion comes despite the Catholic Church’s condemnation of the practice, which has led to soul-searching on the part of Catholic Florida governors such as former Gov. Jeb Bush.

So is DeSantis, who has made his faith a key tenet of his political identity, a practicing Catholic who’s violating the church’s teachings? Asked twice, DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin wouldn’t say.

Last year, Griffin did tell the Tampa Bay Times, “The governor is a Christian and there is absolutely no issue with him sharing his values or utilizing them in his decision-making as a leader.”

323 people on death row

Owen is scheduled to die by lethal injection on June 15 in the murders of Georgianna Worden and Karen Slattery in 1984 in Boca Raton and Delray Beach.

On May 3, the state executed Darryl Barwick for the 1986 murder of Rebecca Wendt in Panama City, which followed the April 12 execution of Louis Gaskin in the 1989 murders of a couple in Flagler County and the Feb. 23 execution of Donald David Dillbeck for a slaying in Tallahassee in 1990.

Dillbeck was the first person executed in more than three years, when Gary Ray Bowles was put to death in August 2019 for a 1994 murder in Jacksonville. There are currently 323 people on death row in Florida.

At an event on May 5, DeSantis explained the rise in executions this year, telling reporters, “This is the law of the land, and we’re going to make sure that it’s followed.”

DeSantis said executions “slid a little bit” because of legal issues such as the disputed guilt of a death row inmate. James Dailey claimed another man confessed to the 1985 murder of a woman in Pinellas County for which he was sentenced to death, but he failed to convince a court in 2020 and 2021 and is still awaiting execution.

The COVID-19 pandemic also led to delays, he said, as well as 2022 being an election year.

“We said, ‘Let’s just get through the election,’” DeSantis said. “And then we’re trying to get on a more normal pace with some of this.”

‘Far more complicated’

Griffin said the execution procedure “is far more complicated — and involves many more people and resources — than is commonly understood.”

That includes providing the drugs used in lethal injection, the requirement that state officials including DeSantis be physically present and on the phone, the presence of witnesses and family members, as well as medical professionals needing to be on hand.

For death warrants, the law requires “a complete exhaustion of remaining appeals and the egregiousness of the crime [or crimes] committed,” Griffin said, adding state emergencies such as hurricanes also delay the process.

Democrats have used executions to shore up their “tough-on-crime” credentials in the past.

Then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton famously returned from the campaign trail in 1992 to oversee the execution of mentally impaired convict Ricky Ray Rector, while former Graham was nicknamed “Bloody Bob” for increasing executions in election years.

“Graham made a deal with the devil on the death penalty,” said Miami Herald editor Tom Fiedler, according to Slate. “He figured whatever good he wanted to achieve in politics would be lost if he didn’t give the people what they wanted.”

The expansion of the death penalty in Florida makes it stand out, even in the South.

“Alabama is the only other state that does not require jury unanimity when recommending a death sentence,” said Christie Arnold, associate for Social Concerns and Respect Life with the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Alabama’s requirement is at least 10 jurors must agree,” Arnold said. “So for Florida to even go further than that … means that we are now the outlier on the death penalty in the nation.”

Notably, the bills received bipartisan support. State Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book spearheaded the child sexual assault expansion, citing her own history of child abuse by a caregiver.

Anger over the 2018 Parkland killer of 17 people escaping a death sentence by one juror’s vote also led many Democrats to back needing just eight votes to sentence death, including Book, Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Hollywood, and Sen. Linda Stewart, D-Orlando.

“It’s actually been really eye-opening in that regard, to see that it’s much less of a partisan issue than, say, abortion,” Arnold said. “And we have seen Republican members vote against these death penalty bills,” including state Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, and Ileana Garcia, R-Miami.

“There were a lot of crime victims’ families from Parkland present and testifying in favor of this bill,” said Neisha-Rose Hines, criminal justice policy strategist at ACLU of Florida, who testified against it.

Thompson, who voted against that bill, was also one of just five senators who voted against the child sexual assault bill.

“I think that many of our party supported this legislation because of their personal connection with our Democratic Leader in the Senate,” Thompson told the Orlando Sentinel. “But I just can’t, particularly when you think about the fact that many of the people on death row are Black and brown people, it’s just not something that I can support expanding.”

‘Violates human dignity’

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed those expansions as well as the death penalty in general, Arnold said.

“We believe it violates human dignity, is plagued with error, perpetuates violence and does not deter criminal acts,” Arnold said.

DeSantis identifies as Catholic, though whether he attends Mass weekly is not publicized. He attended Mass at Ave Maria University in Southwest Florida in October, according to the private college’s website.

Catholic governors in the past have been torn by their church’s teachings and their duties as governor.

Bush, a Catholic convert, said it was “hard for me, as a human being, to sign the death warrant,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in 2015. “… I’m informed by my faith in many things, and this is one of them.”

But, he added, “It was the law of the land when I was governor, and I faithfully dealt with it.”

Arnold said she couldn’t speak to whether violating Catholic teaching should result in a Catholic governor being barred from receiving communion, as some bishops have done with pro-abortion rights politicians.

“That’s up to each bishop, who has the authority over their specific parishioner who may or may not be the governor,” Arnold said.

Bishops’ decisions can vary greatly. Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C., said President Joe Biden could receive communion despite his support of abortion rights. The Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, barred former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from communion in her home diocese.

“There has been a lot of noise made about that … but it’s happened very rarely,” Christine Firer Hinze, a professor of Christian ethics and chair of theology at Fordham University in New York, said of denying politicians communion for their actions in office. “However, it has happened occasionally. And I don’t know of any bishop in the U.S. who has done the same for a governor who signed a death warrant.”

The American church has an “undulating” standard for how they treat politicians, she said. But the current composition of American Catholic leaders, she added, “contains a lot more bishops who are vociferously for enforcing anti-abortion legislation than bishops who are vociferously for challenging capital punishment.”

David Cloutier, a professor of theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C, said the difference in emphasis between abortion and the death penalty has been debated for years.

“Is the Church saying something like abortion is a more serious or more grave matter than the death penalty, by focusing on one and not the other?” Cloutier said. “Technically, it should not be saying that and is not saying that. But that impression can be given.”

Hinze said the expansion of the death penalty to child rapists is particularly questionable theologically, where a life is not even being taken for another life.

“What is going to be the effect on the community of either executing this person or not executing this person?” she said, describing contemporary Catholic thinking. “[How is] putting them in jail for the rest of their life less effective than killing them?”

One thing should be clear for Catholics, Cloutier said.

“The issues of abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment [are] all treated together in John Paul II’s encyclical on the culture of life. They all are offenses against the basic dignity of life that comes from God.”

​ Orange County Register 

As Title 42 expires, what should Southern California expect?

• May 13, 2023

Southern California communities are expecting to be “deeply impacted” by the end of Title 42, a coronavirus-era policy that allowed the U.S. to turn away asylum seekers at the southern border.

Between the state’s proximity to Mexico and a sizable immigrant population that already calls California home, the changes at the border may result in more asylum seekers settling in Southern California, whether with family or at any number of the shelters here, experts say.

“California, especially Southern California being so close to the border, has always seen a lot of immigrants,” said Alvaro Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy for the Los Angeles Immigrant Defenders Law Center.

“But now the shelters and nonprofit organizations that help folks across the border are at or beyond capacity, and they need infrastructure and more resources in order to be able to assist as many people as they can,” Huerta said.

Title 42, which allowed the U.S. to quickly turn away migrants at the border, expired late Thursday night. The Biden administration has put in place other policies meant to stop people from coming into the country illegally, but the U.S. has said it will accept up to 30,000 people per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under certain conditions (like having a sponsor) as well as up to 100,000 people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras who already have family in the country.

“Because there are so many immigrants that are living in California, some of the people attempting to cross are family members, children and parents,” said Lauren Heidbrink, an immigration expert and professor at Cal State Long Beach.

In Riverside County, where six temporary sheltering sites are located, officials anticipate a “significant stress” on resources. Facilities there are already at 95% capacity, according to City News Service.

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Camp Pendleton Marines will support Border Patrol agents as more migrants arrive
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“It remains to be seen what the local impact will be in the coming days, weeks or months when Title 42 expires,” county executive officer Jeff Van Wagenen recently said. “It is likely that we will see an increase in the number of individuals released by (California Border Patrol). This will cause significant stress to the system.”

According to the annual report of refugees and asylees released by the Department of Homeland Security in March, California, Washington and Texas resettled the most refugees in 2020. And according to the California Immigrant Data Portal, Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles counties in recent years were the top destinations for refugees in California, one of four states bordering Mexico.

The consensus among many officials and immigration experts is there is still a lot left to be figured out.

“Frankly, I think a lot of the information is still very much up in the air,” Huerta said. “It’s still very unclear exactly how it’s all going to work.”

And Heidbrink worries that the additional restrictions on asylum seekers at the border could mean many are turned away, unable to unite with family in California or elsewhere in the U.S.

Huerta wants to see more social workers, asylum officers and judges who can adjudicate cases sent to the border during this change.

About 200 Marines from Camp Pendleton will be sent to the border to aid agents with the first wave of service members arriving on Friday and the remaining troops arriving between May 27 and June 5.

Since 2019, California has invested around $1 billion in supporting some 350,000 asylum seekers, including providing medical screenings, vaccinations, temporary shelter, food and clothing, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. California also supports several migrant shelters, travel staging sites and temporary sheltering facilities in San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties.

Southern California lawmakers, too, say they are concerned about a shortage of resources at the border.

Rep. Lou Correa, an Anaheim Democrat who has visited multiple ports of entry between the U.S. and Mexico in recent weeks, said California has a “strong infrastructure at the border that enables us to process people a lot more efficiently” — and yet still, border patrol agents are saying more resources, including personnel, are needed.

“It just perplexes me that everybody talks about the fact that we have a border challenge, and yet, we’re not putting the resources where the men and women at the border tell me they need them,” Correa said.

“After several visits to the border, it’s evident to me we must do things differently,” echoed Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano. “We’ve got to increase funding for effective border security measures; we’ve got to upgrade our processing systems.”

Republican Rep. Young Kim, on the other hand, supported extending the COVID-era policy. But she argues “ending programs like Title 42 … without replacements to help border patrol prevent overcrowding of facilities will make our border crisis even worse.”

But at least a few experts believe the immediate surge will only be temporary due to the backlog of those seeking refuge and other global conditions.

“We’ve barely lived up to our responsibilities of assessing people’s claims for asylum in a fair and accurate way,” said Marisa Cianciarulo, a Chapman University law professor and immigration law attorney. “Claims have continued to be processed, but there have been significant delays.”

Heidbrink, the Cal State Long Beach professor, agrees.

“There will be an immediate uptick in migration given that over 1 million people have been turned away under Title 42,” Heidbrink said. “And over time, we’ll see that we’ll return to pretty seasonal increases and dips in migration.”

Correa, the top Democrat on the Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee, said the federal government must invest in more funding for asylum processing, expand programs that allow refugees to live in and work in the U.S. for a period of time, increase personnel at the border and “get away from the politics.”

“The solution is not to vote on one or two bills the way we’re going to do, and get up and say we fixed the refugee problem,” Correa said. “The solution is going to be long-term.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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​ Orange County Register 

The long decay of Van Nuys Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley

• May 13, 2023

On Monday last, I drove to Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Park for a pickup softball game. I left the house at 8 a.m., which should have left plenty of time to reach my destination.Unfortunately, the 101 was extra grouchy and Waze sent me meandering through a labyrinth of surface streets, including a long jog north to Sherman Way before heading south on Van Nuys Boulevard.

What a demoralizing ride.

Besides the soul-robbing gridlock every Los Angeles mayor since Jose Vicente Feliz in 1781 has pledged to reduce, the ride down Van Nuys Boulevard was a journey through a dystopian gauntlet of boarded-up storefronts, abandoned sofas, overflowing trashcans and homeless shanties abutting graffiti-splattered cinderblocks and plywood.

What was once the epicenter of commerce and culture in the San Fernando Valley is now so depressing, even the X-rated video store went out of business.

When a neighborhood is too seedy for a dirty book store, it’s more than a cry for help.

Back in the “American Graffiti” days of car and sock hops, Van Nuys Boulevard was where the cool kids congregated for burgers and Cokes, cruising and kissing.

Men shopped for slacks and fedoras, while women tried on shoes and lunched with the ladies.

The trendy shops are long gone, replaced by bodegas selling beer and lottery tickets and bongs. “For Rent” signs in multiple languages have yet to produce any takers.

  (Courtesy of Doug McIntyre)

Like my men’s room disaster, lots of things undid Van Nuys Boulevard and countless other once thriving neighborhoods.

Tastes changed.

Demographics changed.

Kids flocked to the Westfields and Gallerias, choosing malls over main streets.

Then the internet crushed what was left of mom-and-pop commerce.

Why fight traffic and risk a ticket at a parking meter?

Why get hit up by panhandlers begging?

Or fall victim to an unprovoked attack by a tragic lost soul who should be in a mental hospital or rehab facility, but has been condemned to the streets?

When the customers stopped shopping and the kids stopped cruising, stores started failing and landlords lost their shirts.

Not even the adult bookstore survived the downfall of Van Nuys Blvd. (Courtesy of Doug McIntyre)

Buildings started to decay. Our city councilors and mayors ignored the pleas for help, first in English, then in Spanish, now in every language.

It wasn’t one thing that did in Van Nuys Boulevard, just as it isn’t just one thing causing name brands like Whole Foods and Nordstrom to pull out of downtown San Francisco, and everyone but junkies to bail on downtown Portland, Oregon.

The disaster dominos tumble one after the other.

Mayor Karen Bass should take the same drive I took last Monday, Sherman Way to the Government Center on Van Nuys Boulevard, but only if she sits up front.

You can’t see the real Los Angeles through tinted windows in the back seat of a taxpayer-funded, chauffeured SUV.

Doug McIntyre can be reached at: Doug@DougMcIntyre.com. His novel “Frank’s Shadow” is available for preorder at BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com.

​ Orange County Register 

Prison guard union tool and drunk driver Dave Min touts endorsement from police union

• May 13, 2023

Democratic state Sen. Dave Min was elected to the California Senate in 2020 thanks to a massive spending binge by the California prison guard union.

The union spent about $1.5 million elect Dave Min, who in turn voted to give them massive raises and giveaways (worth over $500 million) as soon as he took office. That’s money that could have gone to classrooms or health care, but Dave Min doesn’t care about any of that. He chose to reward his friends at the prison guard union, because they helped him snag a title he could use in his inevitable bid for Congress.

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It’s against this backdrop that Dave Min is now touting the endorsement of the union which represents Los Angeles police officers for his campaign for Congress. Yes, he had to go all the way to Los Angeles, out of the congressional district, to find a police union willing to endorse him at this stage in the race.

Min is touting this endorsement not long after his arrest for putting lives in danger by driving drunk through a red light in Sacramento. Police unions are known for being amoral and even immoral, so their endorsement of public safety threat and drunk drinker Dave Min is no surprise.

What is remarkable, though, is the arrogance of Dave Min to continue wasting everyones time with his congressional campaign.

Dave Min should drop out immediately. Any Democrat supporting him has no integrity.

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com

​ Orange County Register 

Home prices fell in 61% of Orange County. Did your ZIP drop?

• May 13, 2023

March 2023 OC home price change by ZIP from CoreLogic (Map by Flourish)

Home prices fell in the past year in roughly three of every five Orange County neighborhoods.

Countywide, the median selling price was $990,000 in March – off 3% in a year, according to CoreLogic data. Sales totaled 2,109 existing and new homes – off 34% in a year.

The market has cooled as rising mortgage rates and a shaky economy scared off house hunters. But it hasn’t been an across-the-board drop.

In 51 of 84 Orange County ZIP codes, prices have fallen since March 2022. That’s 61% of the county. And 71 ZIPs saw one-year sales declines or 85% of the county.

How did your ZIP code fare? Please note homebuying trends at the neighborhood level can be volatile. Check the graphic below …

In 51 of 84 Orange County ZIP codes, prices dropped since March 2022. That’s 61% of the county. And 71 ZIPs had one-year sales drops, or 85% of the county. (SCNG / CoreLogic)

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​ Orange County Register 

Watering, weeds and what to do about gophers in your garden

• May 13, 2023

1. Be on the lookout for two noxious weeds that require extreme vigilance to remove them from the garden. The first is false garlic (Nothoscordum inodorum). Its flowers and foliage may fool you into thinking that they belong to some sort of desirable type of onion or garlic until you see the plant proliferate and defy eradication. The problem is the inordinate number of bulbs a single bulb may produce. Bulbs may be so small that you cannot see them so that when you remove a clutch of them underground, carve out an additional pocket of soil around them so as to make sure no more are present in that spot. The other defiant garden weed is nutgrass (Cyperus esculentus). It forms nut-like tubers and digging them up is one strategy for defeating them but you are likely to miss some tubers, since they grow down as far as 18 inches. However, if you consistently pull all nutgrass leaves as soon as they appear for several years, you will eventually starve the tubers.

2. Greg Alder (gregalder.com), a pre-eminent vegetable and fruit gardener in Southern California, advocates the use of a Cinch trap for taking care of a gopher problem. He promotes the use of traps in general since only by trapping a gopher can you be sure it’s gone. Other traps work but the advantage of this one is that a minimum of digging is required to set the trap. All you do is excavate soil at the top of the tunnel with a trowel and set the trap inside. A shovel is not needed. Alder enthuses that “the Cinch simply catches gophers more often” than other traps.

3. You can plant almost anything at this time of year as long as you make watering your top priority. The smaller the plant, the more attentive you need to be to its watering needs. Plants of any description growing in five-gallon containers or smaller should be watered every day for the first two weeks after they are planted. If you miss a single early morning watering, you may see your new plants burnt up by the end of the day. Mulch, of course, will give you a reserve of water in the soil that can be your plants’ salvation on extremely hot days at any time of the year.

4. Zucchini squash is one of the easiest plants to grow. Many of the fruits and vegetables we harvest in our backyards are smaller than the versions we see of them at the grocery store. Yet without even trying, you can grow zucchini fruits far bigger than the grocery models. Yet zucchini is tastier when harvested earlier in its development, at about the size you see it in the produce department, at the stage where you can pierce through its skin with your thumbnail. If you see no fruit on your zucchini or other squash early in the season, this is due to all the flowers being either male or female. Later in the season, flowers of both types are formed. “Zucchini Love” (Storey Publishing, 2023), by Cynthia Graubart, features zucchini in the 43 recipes found in the book.

5. The following crops are reliably grown by direct seeding in the garden now: bean, beet, carrot, cilantro, dill, leek, radish, spinach, sunflower, turnip. Tomato eggplant, pepper, collard greens, rosemary, and lavender are best grown from transplants. Those that grow reliably in the garden from either seed or transplants include corn, bok choi, chard, cucumber, fennel, lettuce, melons, basil, fennel, squash of all kinds, and pumpkin.

Send your questions and comments about plants and gardening practices to joshua@perfectplants.com.

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​ Orange County Register 

Why Mother’s Day is the most hated day in the restaurant industry

• May 13, 2023

Mother’s Day is one of the busiest days for the American restaurant industry, presenting a massive operational challenge to restaurants. That’s why it gained a reputation among waiters and restaurant staff as one of the most grueling days on the calendar.

“Every server knows that working on Mother’s Day is hell. In fact, if I die and go to hell, I completely expect it to be Mother’s Day. 365 days a year,” wrote Darron Cardosa, in his book “The Bitchy Waiter: I’m Really Good at Pretending to Care.”

What’s so bad about it? From big groups that show up in waves (“most of us are here!”), to food-fussy kids to splitting the check dramas and coffee-cup lingerers, restaurants hate this holiday. This year is expected to be particularly challenging as high inflation and rising menu prices give some restaurant-goers an extra sense of entitlement.

“The anticipation alone can make you anxious,” said Joe Haley, an abstract artist who works as a server at a Quincy, Massachusetts, Italian-American restaurant. It gets “jam-packed. People are calling at the last minute for a reservation, there are other people who made multiple reservations so Mom could have her pick and they never cancel… people who take out their mother once a year tell you ‘Nothing can go wrong!’” he said.

But it does. With big tables, a few late arrivals can kick a kitchen into chaos. “And every family has at least one black sheep or in-law who can’t be relied upon to save their lives. Mother’s Day: I dread it,” Haley added.

Chefs, servers and owners said that this year guests have set their expectations high: Special occasion meals in a time of rising food prices. In a post-pandemic world, luxury — or rather the appearance of luxury and excess — is “in.” Across the country, customers will get aggravated if their $30 eggs Benedict isn’t dolloped with caviar on Sunday.

Tastes have changed, literally, since Covid, said Chef Art Smith, who has been personal chef to Oprah Winfrey and Jeb Bush. He will be serving hundreds of Mother’s Day meals at his four restaurants including his Homecomin’ at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World.

The people who visit? “They’re drinking more. They want more carbs — If it’s mac and cheese, it has to be the cheesiest. But they want salads, and they want more veg sides, too. They just want more.”

A busy day for restaurants

The National Retail Federation forecasts that Mother’s Day spending will reach $35.7 billion this year, with a record $5.6 billion alone spent on a meal or outing, up 6% from last year. It’s the second-busiest day in the restaurant business, eclipsed only by Valentine’s Day, according to online reservations site OpenTable.

Mother’s Day presents “an operational challenge,” said Shawn Walchef, owner of five Cali BBQ eateries in the San Diego area. “It’s the busiest day of the year and also the day guests have the highest expectations. He foresees some fuss over tables on the patio — “In Southern California, everyone wants to sit outside.”

For many restaurants, this is the first big holiday since 2019 that hasn’t been overshadowed by the pandemic. “It’s a lot of people getting together who haven’t seen each other in a while,” said owner Binh Douglas, who opened Main Prospect in Southampton, New York, about 18 months ago.

He expects that guests Sunday will be spending about 40% more than usual, and that a third of the adults will add the $19.95 “bottomless mimosa” to their meal. Fortunately, egg and seafood prices have come down in the last few weeks, he said.

Rising prices

But inflation has left its mark on Mother’s Day brunch. At the Breakers in Palm Beach, Mother’s day brunch in The Circle restaurant is $250 per person (up from $160 in 2019) with unlimited Champagne cocktails and a harpist who goes from table to table.

At the family-packed McLoone’s Boathouse in West Orange, New Jersey, also home to a waterfront buffet, brunch has gone to $54.95 from $49.95 in 2019.

Pricing is touchy. “Your Mother’s Day meal can’t be obnoxiously expensive,” said Derek Axelrod, co-owner of Manhattan’s Upper East Side T bar restaurant. Their Mother’s Day menu will likely be upwards of $100 person, but won’t turn much of a profit, he said. They’re counting on liquor sales to do that. Meanwhile T bar is adding touches like a fois gras, cranberry and chicken parfait to the menu.

Servers and owners are also under pressure to “push the lobster.” Seven different restaurants at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas are serving Mother’s Day meals that include lobster (The resort’s round-up of all its Mother’s Day menus notes that a subsequent gondola ride is an additional $39).

Ophelia, a rooftop restaurant near the United Nations in New York, solves the “luxury” problem neatly by offering a menu in which Mom gets it all: fried quail egg, lobster, filet mignon, waffles and smoked salmon — but be warned: it’s a $59-per-person presentation of “petite bites.”

In Naples, Florida, the hamburger at the Veranda E restaurant on Sunday will be brought under glass, and a cloud of smoke will rise up as it is uncovered. “That’s new for us,” says owner Mary Brandt, who will have four generations of women from her family at the restaurant.

To maximize profits and seating, chain restaurants are changing, too. Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which has locations in about three-dozen states, is opening several for breakfast or brunch on Mother’s Day; at the Fort Worth location, there will be wild blueberry pancakes. And some Red Lobsters are giving Moms a coupon for 10% off their next meal — even including off the Ultimate Endless Shrimp Feast.

So, book now, and tip your server. Of all holidays, Mother’s Day is considered so stressful for workers that the National Restaurant Association recommends that owners ensure that their servers are “fed and properly hydrated” and should be given a “combat-duty” bonus — especially the mothers on staff who work the shift.

Server Joe Haley, in Quincy, has a better idea: “Why can’t you people just make your Mom breakfast?”

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​ Orange County Register 

Tom Campbell: The House Problem Solvers Caucus can help avoid debt ceiling calamity

• May 13, 2023

Congress is sharply divided along political lines. On any given issue, however, there is often a large majority of each house that favors a particular solution to a problem. Even so, a bill presenting that solution might not be allowed a vote.  Speakers of the House of both parties have refused to allow a bill to come to a vote on the House floor unless a majority of their party favors the bill. Majority rule has thus deteriorated into control by the 25% most right or left members of Congress, from the safest districts.

Into this breach, the House Problem Solvers Caucus (supported by the No Labels national organization) has stepped forward. Thirty-one Republicans and 32 Democrats comprise this group. They have offered a common-sense solution to the present debt ceiling deadlock. On behalf of “the rest of us,” those more concerned with good outcomes than partisan victories, the Problem Solvers’ solution should be allowed to succeed. Here’s how it can.

The Problem Solvers have harnessed the annual budget process to resolving the debt limit fight.  The annual expiration of appropriation bills on October 1 brings serious consequences. The Constitution requires “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Once the money appropriated for a government program from a previous year has been spent, another appropriations bill must be enacted or that government program ceases. Social Security is not affected because it is on permanent appropriation, but the military and all other “discretionary” spending is not.

This kind of government shut-down actually occurred ten years ago, when Sen. Cruz held back appropriation bills for sixteen days to protest the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

The Problem Solvers propose a temporary extension of the debt ceiling to the end of the year. They call for the creation of a bipartisan commission of experts, not congressmembers, who would create a package of long-term budget solutions, to be presented as a whole without allowing for amendment. That is the process that worked in 1983 to avert bankruptcy for Social Security and Medicare. Democrats did not want to postpone the vesting age for these entitlements; Republicans did not want to increase the federal tax for those programs. The commission’s eventual package included both, and a majority of Congress approved it, since it was the only solution being offered.

To approve the Problem Solvers’ compromise today, an unusual procedural step is available to get around the normal practice that bars any vote from getting to the floor without a majority of the majority party’s support. Five of the 31 Republican Problem Solver Congressmembers need to join the Democrats in the House in signing a discharge petition.

This procedure actually worked in 1999, when I was in Congress. Along with other moderate Republicans, and almost all the Democrats, I participated in a discharge petition signed by more than half the members of the House. That compelled Speaker Newt Gingrich to allow a vote on campaign finance reform.

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Republican Problem Solvers can expect some partisan criticism for signing. I certainly did. However, they would hold a strong hand. The Democrats’ discharge petition includes only the debt ceiling extension. The Republican Problem Solvers could insist it include the Commission element as well, or they would remove their signatures from the petition. Once a “discharged” bill is headed to the House Floor anyway, the Speaker can offer to allow a different version, including the Commission element, to be considered through the Rules Committee, and he would certainly do so.

Extreme partisanship has caused a breakdown in our country’s governance. However, we can take heart that just a handful of responsible members of Congress can still overcome the most pernicious effects of this polarization.  The discharge petition, and an independent commission to work out sensible solutions neither party would adopt alone, are vehicles to accomplish that end.

Tom Campbell was a five-term U.S. congressman, California state senator, and California director of finance. He is a professor of law and a professor of economics at Chapman University. He left the Republican party in 2016 and is in the process of forming a new political party in California, the Common Sense Party.

​ Orange County Register