Category Archives: Uncategorized

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.Continue reading “Heaven Was Already Here”

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 lackContinue reading “Why Uncontested Elections Should Worry Everyone”

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. FamiliesContinue reading “The Cost of One-Party Rule Under Democrats”

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 restrictionsContinue reading “Punishing Lawful Authority”

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 theContinue reading “Albany’s Tab is Due”

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.Continue reading “The Stories That Remain”

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 whoContinue reading “When Judges Become the Policy Makers”

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’sContinue reading “Facts Don’t Flinch”

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 aContinue reading “When Politicians Fuel the Rage”

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 areContinue reading “Can Justice Be Drafted by a Machine?”

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative There’s an old saying in government: what gets measured gets managed.In Albany, it seems we’ve taken that one step further—what gets redefined gets erased.Buried in a year-end memo that didn’t exactly come with a press conference or ribbon-cutting, the administration of Governor Kathy Hochul quietly changed how violence inside New YorkContinue reading “When the Numbers Matter More Than the Bruises”

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative There are moments when public officials are called upon not just to react, but to lead — to slow the temperature, demand facts, and respect the gravity of what has just occurred. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey chose a different path. Within hours of a woman being fatally shot during a federalContinue reading “When Anger Replaces Leadership”