Video shows funeral processions in Syria’s Beit Jinn, after Israeli raids and missile strikes killed at least 13 people. Violent clashes erupted after Israel claimed it entered the village to arrest members of the Jama’a Islamiya militant group.
Published On 28 Nov 202528 Nov 2025
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Reporting from Palm Desert — It was a cool and rainy day when elders of the Republican tribe recently gathered to honor one of their own.
The honoree, Stuart K. Spencer, was unmistakable in his white duck pants and a lime-green sport coat so bright it almost hurt to see. A reformed chain-smoker, he snapped merrily away on a wad of chewing gum.
The event marked Spencer’s 90th birthday, but the mood beneath the surface conviviality was unsettled and gray, like the clouds fringing the mountains outside.
If the occasion was intended as a personal celebration, it also had the feel of a wake for a time in politics long passed.
Spencer — savvy, irreverent, profane — spent decades as one of the most successful and admired consultants in the campaign business. The hundreds, both Democrat and Republican, who paid homage at a desert country club included the alumni of several past GOP administrations, in both Washington and Sacramento.
Along with former Vice President Dick Cheney and former California Gov. Pete Wilson, veterans of the Reagan years turned out in force. It was Spencer, more than anyone, who took a political long shot and washed-up B-movie actor and helped transform him into the Reagan of legend.
“This is the gang that could actually shoot straight,” said one longtime GOP operative, peering at the largely silver-haired assembly.
Inevitably, private conversation turned to the current occupant of the White House, a member, nominally, of the same political party as those Republicans present.
Feelings ranged from horror to perplexity. Not from jealousy; most of those in attendance had long ago held the reins of power and were comfortably settled in their memories. Rather, it was the startling dysfunction of the fledgling Trump administration.
Yes, said one veteran of the Reagan White House, there was infighting and jockeying early on then too, but not the public knife-fighting of competing Trump factions.
“We weren’t going on the Sunday TV shows to grandstand,” he said, requesting anonymity, still finding it uncomfortable to criticize a fellow Republican on the record. “We were nose to the grindstone, focused on policy” — which grew out of Ronald Reagan’s deep-seated philosophy, not the whims of a blustery, seemingly improvisational president.
When the time came for testimonials, there was plenty of impertinent humor and fond reminiscing: about midnight phone calls from Nancy Reagan, drinking North Carolina moonshine, and the time Spencer dropped an F-bomb in the Oval Office to advise President Ford to stick to the Rose Garden and not try to out-campaign Jimmy Carter.
“Stu called them as he saw them,” said former Gov. Wilson, dryly.
Jerry Lewis, not the comedian but a former congressman from the Inland Empire, offered one of several elegies.
Today, half of America is holding its breath. I’m one of them.
— Veteran GOP strategist Stuart K. Spencer
Once among the most powerful members of Congress, he was known during 30-plus years representing Riverside and San Bernardino counties for a willingness to work across the partisan aisle, a facility — along with a desire to legislate and not just obstruct — that now seems almost quaint.
“I’d love to see us return to a time when people actually talked to each other,” Lewis said, to a ripple of applause.
Taking his turn at the microphone, Spencer was funny and poignant.
The thing he really likes about living a long life, he said, is that all of his enemies are now dead. Then he saluted some of them: liberals like Jesse Unruh, the legendary Assembly speaker, and Phillip Burton, the formidable San Francisco congressman, who fiercely battled Reagan and his policies. They were men of honor and principle, Spencer said, and he misses them.
His brand of Republicanism — support for legal abortion, certain gun controls and, most urgently, a need to reach out to voters who are not white or conservative — has grown largely out of fashion in the political party to which he devoted his life. He spent 70 years laboring on behalf of the GOP only to be called a RINO, or Republican In Name Only, Spencer said with wonder.
Among the behaviors he models is discretion — Spencer is one of the few insiders who didn’t cash in on his Reagan years — and an abiding respect for the political process and its practitioners. Though no fan of President Trump, he was measured in his critique.
“Today, half of America is holding its breath,” he said. “I’m one of them.”
He warned against lashing out in anger, or turning disappointment into hatred, even as he challenged some of Trump’s more preposterous claims, including the falsehood that he was victimized by millions of illegal votes cast for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“You need to win with class and lose with class,” Spencer said.
He took particular umbrage at those wrapping Trump — another political amateur who improbably made his way to the White House — in the Reagan mantle. The late president “had class and a totally different belief system,” Spencer said.
He wished Trump well. But, he said, “he is President Trump, not President Reagan.”
There was no audible dissent.
The program ended with a Sinatra impersonator singing a customized version of “My Way.” Then the guest of honor quietly slipped out the sliding glass doors, riding past Gerald Ford Drive as he made his way home.
@markzbarabak on Twitter
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Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife, Kayla, announced on Instagram on Friday that their baby daughter, Sterling, died on Oct. 26 — a tragic loss that caused Vesia to miss the Dodgers’ appearance in the World Series last week.
“Our little angel, we love you forever & you’re with us always,” the Vesias wrote. “There are no words to describe the pain we’re going through but we hold her in our hearts and cherish every second we had with her.”
The Vesias had been expecting the birth of Sterling, their first child, during the Dodgers’ postseason run. Her death came during the World Series, forcing Vesia to step away from the club.
The day before Game 1 of the World Series, the Dodgers publicly announced Vesia was not with the team because of a “deeply personal family matter.” The Dodgers left him off their World Series roster, as well as the family medical emergency list, so as not to pressure him into feeling he needed to return.
“This is so much bigger than baseball,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said at the time. “And for us, it was doing whatever small part we could to just 100% be supportive.”
The Dodgers’ bullpen honored Vesia in Game 3 of the World Series, with each reliever writing his No. 51 on the sides of their caps for the rest of the series. The Toronto Blue Jays’ relievers did the same in Games 6 and 7, a gesture several Dodgers publicly recognized and deeply appreciated.
“I think it really speaks to the brotherhood of athletes, major league baseball players,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts ahead of Game 7. “Baseball is what we do, but it’s not who we are. And for these guys to recognize Alex and what he and Kayla have gone through — ‘heartbreaking’ is not even a good enough descriptor.”
“For those guys to do that, it’s incredible,” outfielder Kiké Hernández added. “They’re trying to win a World Series, but they understand that this is — life is bigger than baseball, and baseball’s just a game. For them to do that with the stakes where we’re at, hats off to them, and I want them to know that we appreciate ‘em.”
The Vesias also thanked the Dodgers, Blue Jays and baseball fans for their support.
“Our baseball family showed up for us and we wouldn’t be able to do this without them,” they wrote. “We have seen ALL your messages, comments and posts. It’s brought us so much comfort.”
Vesia was a key part of the Dodgers’ bullpen in both the regular season (when he had a 3.02 ERA in a career-high 68 appearances) and the first three rounds of the playoffs (when he allowed just two runs in seven outings).
On Thursday, the Dodgers picked up Vesia’s $3.65-million option for next season, avoiding arbitration before what will be his final year before reaching free agency.