The Valley Viewpoint

There’s a moment in every campaign announcement where you learn what a candidate really thinks the job is.

In Dave Siegal’s announcement to run again for the District 3 seat on the Dutchess County Legislature, that moment comes quickly.

Siegal is not new to local politics. He is a familiar figure in Democratic circles in LaGrange and across Dutchess County—a consistent presence at rallies, protests, and party events. He is engaged, vocal, and ideologically committed. Last fall, he came within 61 votes of unseating the Republican incumbent in District 3.

That margin matters. In local politics, losses that narrow aren’t failures—they’re feedback. They’re an invitation to reassess, recalibrate, and ask a simple question: what did the voters in the middle need to hear that they didn’t?

What follows in Siegal’s announcement, however, is not that reflection.

Instead, the catalyst for his rematch campaign isn’t a local issue in LaGrange, a vote taken by the Republican legislator he hopes to defeat, or a county policy that needs changing. It’s an ICE protest in Poughkeepsie—and a broader condemnation of the federal administration.

That choice is telling.

County legislators don’t set immigration law. They don’t direct ICE. They don’t control border enforcement, detention policy, or federal priorities. Those decisions are made in Washington, not on Market Street in Poughkeepsie.

Yet Siegal frames his decision to run again for a county seat as a response to national politics, arguing that the way forward is to “elect every single Democrat we can at every level of government.”

That argument may resonate with activists. But District 3 is not decided by activists alone.

Siegal didn’t lose to a Democrat. He lost—by a handful of votes—to a Republican. Which means the voters who decided the race were not looking for party-line purity. They were looking for judgment, priorities, and reassurance that their county representative would focus on the practical business of local government.

When a rematch announcement centers ICE protests and labels national opponents as “fascist,” it raises an unavoidable question for those swing voters:

Is this campaign about serving LaGrange—or about fighting Washington by proxy?

Calling for blanket Democratic victories “at every level” avoids the harder work of explaining why the Republican incumbent in District 3 has failed locally, or what Siegal would do differently in office—on taxes, infrastructure, county services, or cost-of-living pressures that affect residents regardless of party.

This is the missed opportunity.

A candidate who came within 61 votes could have said: Here’s what I learned. Here’s where I didn’t connect. Here’s how I will better represent District 3 next time.

Instead, Siegal nationalizes a local rematch and turns a county legislative race into a referendum on federal politics.

That may energize the Democratic base. But base voters alone don’t flip Republican-held seats—especially in suburban districts like LaGrange.

Local leadership isn’t about how loudly you oppose national figures. It’s about how clearly you understand the limits and responsibilities of the office you’re seeking—and how convincingly you can show voters that you’re running for them, not just against someone else.

In a race decided by 61 votes, that distinction isn’t theoretical.

It’s everything.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

What changes when you stop long enough to notice the life you’re already living.
Have you ever lived through the best days of your life without realizing they were happening?
Is Heaven somewhere you go—or something you learn to notice? I’ve come to believe that Heaven isn’t a destination at all. It’s attention. And the difference between a living hell and a living Heaven often has very little to do with circumstance and everything to do with whether we stop long enough to see what’s right in front of us.
For a long time, my life felt like a quiet kind of hell. I was always behind—behind on my writing, behind with my family, behind with friends, behind with my kid. Always chasing the next thing. Always certain that fulfillment lived just one step ahead. It wasn’t that I wanted more out of life. It was that I never stopped long enough to recognize what I already had.
So yes, I believe in Heaven on Earth. And I believe it’s found anywhere you’re willing to look for it.
Here’s where I found mine.
I found Heaven years ago, dropping my daughter off at school. Sometimes we’d stop for breakfast—just the two of us—talking about her world and mine. We shared music, made up songs, talked about values and nonsense in equal measure. Those ordinary mornings were sacred. Picking her up was just as good. I only wish I had done it more often.
I found Heaven in friendships that began with my Xavier High School classmates and somehow survived time. There’s nothing you can hide from someone who’s known you since you were thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. People call those years “just adolescence,” as if they’re something you endure on the way to real life. But sometimes your whole life happens right there—and everything that follows is the same story, told again with different characters. Pain. Loss. Love. Gratitude. And what we eventually call wisdom. If my life ended tomorrow, I’d know I had already lived deeply. That’s Heaven.
I found Heaven in the Jesuit teachers who shaped me. The teachers of my life quite literally saved my life—sending me out prepared for whatever it was I was meant to become. Sure, there were mediocre ones, even a few bad ones, but never one who didn’t care. They gave their lives to students like me. They lit a path and let me walk it with joy.
I found Heaven in finding my voice. What are the words you do not yet have? What are the quiet tyrannies you swallow day after day, until silence itself makes you sick? Finding your voice—claiming your truth—is an act of justice. And justice, when it’s honest, feels like Heaven.
I found Heaven in the family that raised me. They taught me that how something is given often matters more than the thing itself. Heaven, for me, lived in bungalows in Rockaway, in Manhattan and Bronx tenements, and in Sandy Hook, New Jersey. It lived wherever love was present, even when circumstances were modest.
I found Heaven in learning humility—slowly and imperfectly. As a younger man, I believed everything I had achieved was entirely my own doing. No parents. No aunts or uncles. No one else. That illusion doesn’t survive adulthood. Everything I have was given. I was never alone. I was never lacking. I have always had what I needed—and I am profoundly privileged.
Grace has shaped my life, and gratitude is the only honest response. If maturity asks for humility, then middle age asks for generosity. My parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles lived their lives for me. I try to honor them by showing up for others—by helping, by being kind, by paying forward what I was given.
So thank you: Mom, Dad, Nagh, Sissy, John, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Dottie, Elsie, Georgie, Mary and Jack, Raymie and Liz.
I found Heaven watching the little girl I once took to breakfast before kindergarten graduate with honors from Boston College—and then earn her MBA from UConn, ranked number one.
I found Heaven over the course of a career that allowed me to help friends find work, and in the laughter shared with colleagues past and present.
I found Heaven in the simple truth that the most meaningful part of working alongside the law is stopping people from pushing others around. And yes—once, memorably—I even found Heaven watching an opposing lawyer sanctioned for the sin of pure arrogance.
And finally, I found Heaven in trying to be braver with my talents and more forgiving of my flaws.
Acceptance and sadness can coexist. Sadness is inevitable—we’re human. Pretending otherwise only deepens the wound. But I accept that life is finite. I accept that our time comes sooner than we expect. And I accept that Heaven is already here.
All I’m saying is this: you don’t have to search very hard for something you’re already standing inside.

When No One Shows Up, the Status Quo Wins

A Conservative Look at the Unchallenged Record of Didi Barrett

For more than a decade, Assemblymember Didi Barrett has represented the Hudson Valley in Albany. This election cycle, she faces no announced Republican challenger.

That fact alone should concern voters—regardless of party.

Because when elections lack competition, accountability weakens. And in New York, where one-party control dominates the Legislature, the absence of a challenger doesn’t signal success. It signals entrenchment.

An Unchallenged Record Doesn’t Mean an Untested One

Barrett’s record is clear and consistent. She has voted with the Democratic majority that has overseen:

Soaring state spending

Rising taxes and fees

Higher energy costs

A housing market increasingly out of reach for working families

These outcomes didn’t happen overnight, and they didn’t happen by accident. They reflect years of policy choices—choices Barrett has supported from a position of influence.

Without a Republican challenger, voters are denied a full debate over whether those choices have worked.

Energy Policy Without a Counterweight

As Chair of the Assembly Energy Committee, Barrett plays a major role in shaping state energy policy. That policy has leaned heavily toward regulation and mandates, with less emphasis on affordability and reliability.

In a competitive race, those priorities would be tested.

Instead, rising utility bills have gone largely unanswered at the ballot box.

Conservatives argue that energy policy must balance environmental goals with economic reality. Without opposition, that balance is missing.

Housing: Regulation Goes Unchecked

Barrett’s approach to housing reflects Albany’s dominant philosophy: regulate more, mandate more, trust government to fix shortages it helped create.

But without a challenger, voters don’t hear the alternative argument—that New York’s housing crisis is driven by barriers to construction, excessive compliance costs, and policies that discourage investment.

When no one is present to make that case, the status quo becomes the default.

The Cost of One-Party Comfort

The deeper issue isn’t Didi Barrett personally. It’s the system she operates in.

One-party dominance reduces pressure to question spending.

It discourages dissent.

It rewards caution and conformity.

Without competition, policy failures persist—not because they’re popular, but because they’re unchallenged.

A Conservative Bottom Line

The absence of a Republican challenger doesn’t mean voters are satisfied.

It means voters are being asked to accept:

Higher costs as inevitable

Government growth as unavoidable

Albany’s direction as irreversible

Conservatives believe none of that is true.

But beliefs don’t matter if they’re not represented on the ballot.

Closing Thought

Democracy works best when ideas compete.

This year, voters won’t get that competition in this race.

That makes scrutiny—not silence—more important than ever.

Because when no one shows up to challenge power, power never has to explain itself.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

Albany has been running a tab it refuses to look at—and under one-party rule by Democrats, New Yorkers are the ones being handed the check.

For years, Democratic control of state government has operated as if affordability were a theoretical problem and accountability an optional accessory. Taxes rise. Spending balloons. Families do the math and quietly leave. And the leaders in charge act shocked every time another moving truck shows up on the Thruway.

That’s the backdrop for the New York State Assembly Minority Conference rolling out its 2026 agenda. And this time, the minority isn’t trying to sound bipartisan or polite. It’s trying to sound honest.

Start with the basics. New York has one of the highest tax burdens in the nation, and state spending has increased by more than $50 billion since 2021—entirely under Democratic one-party control. That isn’t accidental. It’s what happens when there’s no meaningful internal check, no pressure to prioritize, and no fear of consequence. The Minority Conference is saying what Albany won’t: this trajectory isn’t sustainable.

Energy policy exposes the disconnect even further. Democratic climate mandates may earn applause in speeches, but in real life they translate into higher utility bills, fewer choices, and a power grid pushed closer to the edge. The Minority Conference isn’t opposing clean energy—it’s opposing governing by ideology while families absorb the cost.

Health care follows the same pattern. Massive spending. Expanding programs. And still, patients struggle to access care because the system is tangled in bureaucracy. Compassion without competence isn’t compassion—it’s dysfunction. The Minority Conference is calling for simpler enrollment and real innovation, not more administrative layers.

Public safety may be the clearest casualty of one-party Democratic rule. Criminal justice laws passed without balance have weakened accountability and left correction officers burned out and walking away. When ideology outranks outcomes, systems break. The Minority Conference is demanding course corrections—real ones—not another press conference.

On jobs and economic growth, the message is blunt. Train workers. Expand apprenticeships. Stop smothering employers with regulations that make hiring a liability. New York doesn’t suffer from a lack of talent—it suffers from policies that drive opportunity elsewhere.

The agenda also draws a firm line on antisemitism. No qualifiers. No selective outrage. No public funding for organizations that spread hate. In a climate where moral clarity often disappears under political pressure, clarity matters.

Child care completes the picture. Under Democratic control, regulation has grown while availability has shrunk and costs have soared. The Minority Conference argues for expanding access, cutting unnecessary rules, and using transparency tools already authorized—because working families need solutions, not slogans.

To frame the debate publicly, the Minority Conference has launched nygoppolicy.com, a central hub for its “Fight for New York” 2026 agenda, featuring policy explanations, legislative proposals, videos, and updates.

Here’s the reality Albany can’t spin away: one-party Democratic rule has had years to deliver, and the results are visible in tax bills, utility statements, workforce shortages, and empty storefronts. The Assembly Minority may not hold the gavel—but it’s forcing a conversation Democrats have tried to avoid.

In 2026, the question won’t be theoretical.
It will be simple: is New York better off under one-party Democratic rule—or is it time to change?

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

There’s a dangerous reflex taking hold in Albany: when something goes wrong somewhere else, lawmakers rush not to wait for facts, but to limit authority first and ask questions later.

After a fatal shooting involving a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis, New York legislators are now racing to impose new restrictions on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operating inside this state. The bills are framed as “accountability.” In practice, they read more like suspicion codified into law.

Here’s the uncomfortable starting point that too many advocates skip over: if ICE agents are acting lawfully, within their federal authority, and consistent with use-of-force standards, then these efforts are not reform. They are interference.

The Minneapolis incident is still under investigation. No court has ruled the agent acted unlawfully. No prosecutor has filed charges. No finding of misconduct has been issued. Yet Albany is already drafting legislation as if guilt were established fact. That should give anyone who believes in due process pause.

Several of the proposals now circulating would restrict how federal agents identify themselves, require public reporting dashboards of enforcement activity, bar the use of state or municipal property for civil immigration enforcement, and sharply limit cooperation between state officials and federal authorities. Supporters insist these measures are about transparency. But transparency is not neutral when it’s applied selectively and in response to political outrage rather than legal findings.

If a federal agent lawfully uses force in the line of duty, the remedy is not to rewrite state law to make that agent’s job harder the next time. The remedy is to let investigations run their course and hold individuals accountable if—and only if—the law demands it. Anything else is preemptive punishment.

There’s also a constitutional reality Albany can’t legislate away. Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. States are free to decline cooperation, but they are not free to obstruct lawful federal action through procedural roadblocks dressed up as oversight. At some point, these bills stop being about civil liberties and start being about political signaling.

What’s most striking is the assumption baked into the debate: that federal enforcement itself is the problem. Not misconduct. Not rogue behavior. The enforcement function. That’s a radical shift. It replaces the rule of law with the rule of narrative—where legitimacy depends less on legality and more on optics.

This isn’t about whether ICE should be above scrutiny. No agency should be. It’s about whether lawmakers are willing to acknowledge a basic principle: lawful authority should not be weakened simply because it is unpopular, controversial, or emotionally charged.

If an ICE agent breaks the law, prosecute the agent.

If an agency violates policy, reform the policy.

But if agents are acting within the law, then targeting the institution itself is not accountability—it’s capitulation to politics.

New York has every right to debate immigration policy. What it should not do is undermine lawful federal enforcement based on unresolved facts from another state. That path doesn’t lead to justice. It leads to selective enforcement, eroded authority, and a system where legality depends on who’s loudest at the moment.

And that’s a precedent no state should be eager to set.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

Albany has been running a tab it refuses to look at—and New Yorkers are the ones being handed the check.

For years, one-party rule has governed as if affordability were a theoretical problem and accountability an optional accessory. Taxes climb. Spending balloons. Families do the math and quietly leave. And the people in charge act surprised every time another moving truck shows up on the Thruway.

That’s the context for the New York State Assembly Minority Conference rolling out its 2026 agenda. And this time, the minority isn’t trying to sound reasonable. It’s trying to sound honest.

Start with the obvious: New York has one of the highest tax burdens in America, and state spending has surged by more than $50 billion since 2021. That’s not investment—it’s indulgence. Albany spends first, explains later, and never seems to ask who’s supposed to pay for it. The Minority Conference is saying what no one else will out loud: this isn’t sustainable, and pretending otherwise is political malpractice.

Energy policy may be the clearest example of how detached Albany has become from real life. Climate mandates look great in speeches. They look very different on utility bills. Prices go up. Choices disappear. Grid reliability gets shakier. The Minority Conference isn’t arguing against clean energy—it’s arguing against governing by press release. If your climate policy only works on paper, it doesn’t work.

Health care follows the same script. Billions spent. Programs multiplied. Access still complicated. Eligibility tangled. Patients stuck navigating systems designed more to protect agencies than serve people. The Minority Conference wants fewer hoops and more results—because compassion without competence isn’t compassion at all.

Then there’s public safety—the issue Albany treats like a PR problem instead of a lived reality. Criminal justice “reforms” passed without guardrails have weakened accountability and driven correction officers out of a system already on life support. When laws favor ideology over outcomes, the result isn’t reform—it’s chaos. The Minority Conference is demanding fixes, not slogans.

On jobs and economic growth, the message is refreshingly unromantic. Train workers. Expand apprenticeships. Cut the regulatory nonsense that makes hiring harder than firing. New York doesn’t lack talent—it suffocates it. Remove the barriers, and opportunity follows. Keep them, and businesses keep packing.

The agenda draws a hard line on antisemitism, and notably, it doesn’t hedge. No selective outrage. No funding excuses. No moral outsourcing. Public dollars should never support organizations that spread hate—full stop. In a moment when too many leaders are afraid of offending the wrong crowd, clarity matters.

Child care rounds out the list, and once again Albany’s problem isn’t intent—it’s execution. Families need care they can afford and find, not another regulatory maze that drives providers out and parents to exhaustion. Expand access. Reduce unnecessary rules. Use transparency tools already on the books. This isn’t complicated—unless you’re committed to making it that way.

To put it all in one place, the Minority Conference has launched nygoppolicy.com, the home of its “Fight for New York” 2026 agenda—policy breakdowns, legislative proposals, videos, and updates for people who want substance instead of spin.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the Assembly Minority doesn’t control Albany. But it’s done playing along with the fiction that this state is being managed well. 2026 is shaping up to be a referendum on whether New York keeps governing for headlines—or finally starts governing for the people who pay the bills, staff the prisons, run the small businesses, and raise families here.

Albany’s tab is due.

And this time, someone is actually reading the receipt.

What will they say about you when you’re gone?

I attended a funeral last week for a woman I had only recently come to know. She was 92 years old—a pillar of her community. Eloquent. Brilliant. Devout. Deeply religious.

The service itself was sparse and simple. Mostly prayers. Quiet reflections. No grand speeches. Just family.

First, several of her grandchildren spoke. Then her two daughters. Finally, her son.

Each shared something they had learned from her—small life lessons, passed down gently, etched permanently into their hearts.

One grandson spoke of her kindness. How she once lent him money to buy a car, on what he jokingly called “very favorable terms.” Which meant: pay me back when you can.

Her eldest daughter spoke of her parents’ marriage—how its devotion and tenderness set the standard for the generations that followed.

Her youngest daughter laughed as she recalled receiving the same holiday gift year after year: a book of stamps. “They’ll come in very handy,” her mother would say, “when you send letters.”

And her son told the stories only sons can tell.

How his mother would break up neighborhood fights without hesitation. How she insisted he wear a coat even on a 75-degree winter day—“It’s a winter 75,” she’d say. How she demanded he clap at neighborhood parades, because recognition mattered, and because she feared television was turning his generation into passive observers of life instead of participants.

Then he shared something deeper.

Early in his parents’ marriage, his father battled cancer. Fearing he was dying, his father began to withdraw from the family—thinking it would spare the children pain if they didn’t grow too attached.

His mother would have none of it.

“How do you want us to remember you?” she asked him.

As a loving, present patriarch?

Or as a distant, removed one?

By the end of the service, the room had done what rooms like that always do. We laughed. We cried. And we knew—without needing to be told—that a life had been well lived. That it had touched others. That it had left warmth behind.

Now contrast that with an obituary that ran in 2016:

“Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick, born Jan. 4, 1935, died alone on March 15, 2016. She is survived by six of her eight children, whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way possible.”

Submitted by her children, the obituary went on to describe a woman they called cruel, abusive, and violent.

“Everyone she met, adult or child, was tortured by her cruelty… and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit.”

There were no tears here. No softened memories.

“We celebrate her passing… and hope she lives in the afterlife reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty and shame that she delivered on her children.”

Wow.

“May she rest in peace” was clearly not on the table.

According to an Associated Press account, her children had been removed from her care in the 1960s and estranged for more than thirty years. Their experience was so severe it helped lead to changes in Nevada law allowing children to legally sever ties with abusive parents.

“Everything in there was completely true,” her son told the AP. He said the obituary was meant to call attention to child abuse—and yes, “to shame her a little bit.”

We’re taught that when someone dies, we shout the good and whisper the bad. Or at least remain silent. That’s what “paying your respects” is supposed to mean.

But not every life earns that courtesy.

Most of what we do in this world is a rehearsal for our funeral. No matter how carefully we curate our résumés, reputations, or public image, in the end we are summed up by others—by their memories, their experiences, their truth.

These two women shared almost nothing in common.

Except this:

Neither was remembered for accomplishments.

Both were remembered for how they treated people.

That is what remains.

And it’s something worth thinking about—if you care about your legacy.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

There is a comfortable fiction we like to tell ourselves about the judiciary—that judges merely “call balls and strikes,” that they are passive umpires standing above politics. It’s a soothing story. It’s also one that no longer matches reality.

This week, Republican senators called for the impeachment of federal judges who repeatedly blocked Trump-era policies. Predictably, the reaction was instant and theatrical: cries of “authoritarianism,” warnings about the “end of democracy,” and breathless claims that judicial independence itself is under assault.

But here’s the inconvenient truth: impeachment of judges is not a constitutional crisis. It is a constitutional remedy.

The Framers did not design the judiciary to be untouchable. They gave federal judges lifetime appointments conditioned on good behavior. That phrase was not ornamental. It was deliberate. And impeachment is the mechanism they provided when judges abandon that standard—not only through corruption, but through sustained abuse of power.

At the center of this debate is James Boasberg, whose rulings repeatedly halted executive actions, not merely on narrow statutory grounds, but through expansive interpretations that critics argue substituted judicial preference for elected policy. Whether one agrees with the underlying policies or not is beside the point. The issue is who decides.

When judges move beyond interpreting the law and begin reshaping it—especially on matters of immigration, national security, and executive authority—they cease to be neutral arbiters. They become political actors with lifetime tenure and no electoral accountability.

That is not what the Constitution envisioned.

Senators like Ted Cruz are right about one thing that critics refuse to acknowledge: impeachment is not limited to indictable crimes. History, text, and precedent all confirm that judges may be removed for conduct that seriously undermines public trust or violates constitutional boundaries.

The idea that the only impeachable offense is bribery is a modern invention—one that conveniently shields the judiciary from meaningful scrutiny while allowing it to exercise enormous power over public life.

And let’s be honest about the real double standard at play.

Presidents are impeached for phone calls. Cabinet officials are hauled before Congress for policy failures. Legislators face primaries for bad votes. But judges—whose rulings can nullify laws passed by millions of voters—are told they must never be questioned, challenged, or held to account beyond polite academic criticism.

That is not judicial independence. That is judicial supremacy.

Supporters of impeachment are not arguing that judges should rule for a president. They are arguing that judges should rule as judges. When courts repeatedly block lawful executive action through sweeping injunctions, speculative reasoning, or creative readings untethered from statute or text, Congress has not only the right—but the obligation—to respond.

Impeachment is not retaliation. It is oversight.

And far from intimidating the judiciary, it restores balance. It reminds the courts that they are one branch among three—not philosopher-kings, not guardians above the Constitution, but servants within it.

If judges are confident their rulings are grounded in law, they have nothing to fear from scrutiny. Lifetime tenure was never meant to be lifetime immunity.

In a system built on checks and balances, no branch gets a veto on accountability—not even one wearing robes.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

This isn’t a debate about politics, culture, or slogans.
It’s about reality—and what happens when people collide with it.

Federal agents were conducting a lawful, active operation. That matters. Not rhetorically. Practically. Because once an operation is underway, everything that follows is governed by rules most people never bother to learn—until it’s too late.

American courts have been clear for decades: when force is used by law enforcement, the question is not motive or ideology. It is objective reasonableness—what a reasonable officer could perceive in that moment, under pressure, without hindsight. That standard comes straight from Graham v. Connor, and it exists because reality moves faster than commentary.

When someone confronts armed officers in the middle of an active operation, the risk isn’t theoretical. It’s immediate. And the law does not require officers to gamble their lives on assumptions of good faith.

Citizenship doesn’t stop bullets.
A profession doesn’t suspend physics.
Good intentions don’t override use-of-force doctrine.

Courts have also recognized, in Tennessee v. Garner, that deadly force may be constitutionally reasonable when officers have probable cause to believe a person poses a serious threat of physical harm. That judgment is made in real time—messy, imperfect, and irreversible.

But here’s where the conversation gets uncomfortable.

In recent years, too many politicians have learned that outrage travels faster than facts. They insert themselves into unfolding or barely understood events, issuing statements designed to inflame rather than inform. They label incidents before evidence is gathered. They assign blame before timelines are established. They encourage “resistance” without ever standing in the space where resistance meets consequence.

Those statements don’t occur in a vacuum. They shape expectations. They normalize confrontation. They teach people—implicitly or explicitly—that defiance is virtue, that escalation is courage, and that the system will blink first.

It often doesn’t.

What always comes next is the narrative phase. Context gets stripped. Sequence gets blurred. Legal standards disappear, replaced by slogans. A preventable death becomes a political artifact—useful, tweetable, monetizable.

But symbols don’t bleed.
People do.

Here’s the part no one wants to own: compliance and de-escalation save lives. That isn’t a moral judgment. It’s an observable fact recognized in police training, constitutional law, and decades of litigation. And the inverse is just as predictable—when confrontation is glorified, someone eventually pays for it.

This wasn’t oppression.
This wasn’t racism.
This wasn’t an execution.

It was a chain of decisions made under pressure—amplified by rhetoric from people who will never bear the cost of the outcomes they help provoke.

A family lost someone. That loss is permanent. And the politicians and professional activists who helped normalize this behavior will accept no responsibility. They never do. They move on to the next outrage, the next camera, the next fundraiser.

Reality doesn’t negotiate.
Reality doesn’t care about your office, your ideology, or your followers.
Reality always collects.

And pretending otherwise is how people keep getting killed.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

There is a difference between leadership and agitation. Leadership lowers the temperature. Agitation spikes it—and then pretends the fire just happened. In modern politics, too many elected officials have stopped pretending this is accidental. Rage isn’t a side effect anymore; it’s the product. It’s harvested, packaged, and sold nightly to a base that’s been trained to confuse fury with courage.

Anger travels faster than reason. Outrage converts better than nuance. Fear keeps people glued to screens and loyal to slogans. Politicians have noticed. When politicians fuel the rage, they don’t just win attention—they poison the atmosphere the rest of us are forced to breathe.

Rage doesn’t come out of nowhere. It grows out of real frustrations: stagnant wages, housing costs, cultural whiplash, institutions that feel distant or indifferent. Those grievances are legitimate. Exploiting them is not. But exploitation is easier than governing. It requires no policy depth, no tradeoffs, no adult conversations. Just find a villain, simplify the problem to the point of dishonesty, and point aggressively.

Immigrants. Elites. Cops. Teachers. Judges. Journalists. Corporations. “The other side.” Pick one. Rotate as needed. Keep the crowd angry and the donations flowing.

Language is the accelerant. Words like enemy, invasion, traitor, war, rigged, and corrupt aren’t chosen accidentally. They’re designed to move people from disagreement to hostility. Once you convince people they’re under siege, compromise becomes treason, facts become optional, and institutions become expendable—unless they’re doing exactly what you want.

And then comes the performative outrage from the people supposedly in charge.

When the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, publicly told federal immigration authorities to “get the f*** out” of his city, it wasn’t bold leadership. It was theater. Cheap, viral, profanity-laced theater dressed up as moral clarity.

Whatever your position on immigration policy or federal enforcement, that line didn’t solve a single problem. It didn’t explain the law. It didn’t protect vulnerable residents. It didn’t improve coordination or safety. What it did do was exactly what rage politics always does: spike emotions, harden camps, and turn a complicated legal and humanitarian issue into a street fight with applause breaks.

Supporters were told they were heroes. Opponents were cast as villains. Everyone else got the message loud and clear: governing has been replaced by posturing, and shouting is now a substitute for competence.

This is how contempt gets normalized. When leaders swear at institutions instead of working within them, they teach people that rules only matter when convenient. When profanity replaces precision, credibility is traded for claps. Rage becomes the brand. Performance becomes policy.

The irony, of course, is that rage is a terrible governing tool. You can’t pave roads with it. You can’t staff hospitals with it. You can’t fix housing shortages, reform immigration law, or balance a budget by yelling into a microphone. Governing requires patience, expertise, compromise, and—worst of all—telling your own side “no” once in a while.

That’s why rage politicians never actually want solutions. Solutions end the outrage cycle. Solutions require shared responsibility. Rage, on the other hand, is renewable. There’s always another enemy, another insult, another crisis to monetize.

The downstream effects are predictable. Civic life corrodes. School boards turn into cage matches. Town halls become shouting contests. Neighbors stop trusting neighbors. Courts, journalists, and civil servants become targets rather than referees. And eventually, for a few people who have been marinating in this rhetoric long enough, words stop feeling sufficient. After all, if everything is war, why act like it isn’t?

None of this is to say anger has no place in politics. Moral anger has driven real progress—civil rights, labor protections, anti-corruption reforms. But moral anger is disciplined. It points upward at injustice and forward toward solutions. Manufactured rage punches sideways and downward, offering catharsis instead of change.

The real test of leadership isn’t whether someone can rile a crowd. That’s easy. A megaphone and a grievance will do. The test is whether they can calm a crowd without lying to it, tell hard truths without sneering, and channel frustration into something productive rather than destructive.

A democracy cannot survive forever on adrenaline and insults. Eventually, it needs trust, restraint, and leaders who understand that their words don’t just win news cycles—they shape behavior.

The rage will always be there. The question is whether our politicians will keep lighting the match—and then acting shocked when things burn.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

Brave new world, folks.

England’s legal system—older than the Magna Carta itself, shaped by more than a thousand years of precedent, ritual, and human judgment—has taken a cautious step into the age of artificial intelligence.

Last month, the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary formally acknowledged what institutions across the democratic world are quietly confronting: AI is here, and it is already knocking on the courtroom door. Judges in England and Wales have now been given permission to use artificial intelligence as a limited drafting aid when producing written opinions.

But the embrace is narrow—and intentionally so.

The guidance draws a hard line between assistance and authority. AI may help with grammar, structure, and clarity, but it is expressly barred from legal research, factual analysis, or substantive reasoning. The reason is simple and unsettling: AI systems can fabricate case law, invent facts, reinforce hidden bias, and present confident-sounding falsehoods that are indistinguishable from truth unless carefully checked.

In other words, AI may help format the judgment—but it may not think it.

That caution was underscored by Geoffrey Vos, the second-highest ranking judge in England and Wales:

“Judges do not need to shun the careful use of AI, but they must ensure that they protect confidence and take full personal responsibility for everything they produce.”

That phrase—protect confidence—is the quiet center of gravity here.

Courts do not survive on efficiency alone. They survive on trust. The authority of a ruling rests on the belief that a human being weighed the facts, interpreted the law, and exercised judgment shaped by experience, conscience, and accountability. Once the public begins to wonder whether a machine had a hand on the scales, the legitimacy of the system itself starts to erode.

America Is Already There—Without the Guardrails

Across the Atlantic, American courts are confronting the same reality—only without a single rulebook.

In the United States, there is no national judiciary issuing unified guidance. Instead, judges are learning in real time, often the hard way. Lawyers have been sanctioned for filing AI-generated briefs that cited entirely fictitious cases, attributed opinions to judges who never wrote them, and relied on legal authority that simply did not exist.

The reaction has been swift but fragmented. Some federal judges now require attorneys to certify that no AI-generated legal research was used without human verification. Others demand disclosure whenever AI tools play a role in drafting. Ethics committees across states have begun issuing warnings: reliance on unverified AI may violate professional responsibility rules.

Within the United States federal courts, the principle is becoming unavoidable: AI can assist—but it cannot be accountable. No algorithm signs an order. No chatbot answers on appeal. No machine bears ethical responsibility when justice goes wrong.

And yet the pressure is real. Dockets are crowded. Clerks are stretched thin. Judges are human. The temptation to use AI quietly—for summaries, boilerplate, or routine language—is obvious.

That is what makes this moment so fragile.

England has chosen caution and clarity. America is inching toward the same conclusion through missteps, sanctions, and public embarrassment. Different systems. Same anxiety.

Because once justice begins to sound automated—even if it isn’t—the rule of law itself starts to feel provisional.

The wigs and robes may be fading symbols.

But the principle beneath them remains unchanged:

Justice must be rendered by humans.

Owned by humans.

And trusted by humans.

Anything less—and “Can justice be drafted by a machine?” stops being a headline and starts becoming a warning.