The Valley Viewpoint

Cardinal Timothy Dolan will be remembered as one of the most visible Catholic leaders of his generation — a cleric who understood cameras, cultivated access, and wore New York comfortably. But visibility is not leadership. And charm is not accountability.

Throughout his tenure as Archbishop of New York, Dolan perfected the performance of pastoral presence. He was everywhere: parades, press conferences, civic events, late-night television. Yet as survivors of clergy sexual abuse sought justice, the most consequential work of the Archdiocese happened far from the microphones — in boardrooms, law offices, and balance sheets.

As lawsuits mounted and the scope of abuse became undeniable, the Archdiocese moved decisively — not toward restitution, but toward insulation. Assets were restructured, transferred, and placed into protected entities such as parish corporations and cemetery trusts. These maneuvers were legal. They were also calculated. Their effect was simple and devastating: to shield Church property from survivor claims while projecting a public posture of sympathy and prayer.

This was not ancient history. It was policy.

Dolan justified these decisions as necessary to protect parishes, schools, and the Church’s mission. But to survivors, the message was unmistakable: the institution would safeguard its wealth first, even as victims were forced to relive trauma in courtrooms just to be heard.

Only years later — after courts, legislatures, and public outrage eliminated remaining avenues of delay — did the Archdiocese begin liquidating prime Manhattan real estate to fund settlements. These actions are now presented as responsibility. In truth, they are the end stage of resistance, not the beginning of moral reckoning.

Abuse destroys trust. Cover-ups destroy credibility. But the deliberate shielding of assets after the truth was known crosses a deeper line. It signals that even in the face of acknowledged harm, institutional self-preservation remained the guiding instinct.

Dolan was not naïve. He understood the legal exposure. He understood the optics. He understood the moral stakes. And he chose caution over courage — management over repentance — paperwork over justice.

Leadership is not measured by smiles, sermons, or screen time. It is measured by what is risked when doing the right thing is costly.

The Church in New York did not lose credibility because it paid settlements.

It lost credibility because it spent years trying not to.

There are moments when the presidency is tested not by policy or power, but by restraint. This was one of them—and the President failed it.

Following the violent deaths of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, the nation did not hear words of condolence from its highest office. There was no acknowledgment of grief, no pause for decency, no recognition that a family had been shattered. Instead, the President chose mockery, accusation, and political score-settling.

In a public statement, the President attributed the killings not to crime, tragedy, or human failing—but to what he derisively labeled “a mind-crippling disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.” He suggested, without evidence and without shame, that Reiner’s criticism of him had “driven people CRAZY,” implying moral responsibility for his own death.

This was not commentary. It was character assassination layered onto a homicide.

When pressed later by reporters—given the opportunity to retreat, to recalibrate, to show even minimal presidential gravity—the President doubled down. He dismissed the deceased as “deranged,” said he was “very bad for our country,” and framed the moment not as a human tragedy, but as a personal grievance long overdue for airing.

This is not strength. It is smallness elevated to office.

Presidents are not required to admire their critics. But they are required—by custom, by dignity, by the moral weight of the role—to recognize when politics must yield to humanity. To know when silence is wiser than cruelty. To understand that the bully pulpit becomes a wrecking ball when wielded without restraint.

The presidency is supposed to calm the national temperature, not spike it. It is supposed to model conduct, not degrade it. When a president uses death as a rhetorical weapon, he doesn’t just dishonor the dead—he diminishes the office he occupies.

This wasn’t about Rob Reiner.

It was about whether the President understands what the presidency is for.

On this day, the answer was painfully clear.

On a recent visit to the cemetery where my parents are buried, I was reminded of a mildly bothersome fact: I still haven’t chosen my own final resting place.

Last December, my cousin Kevin and I took a drive up to Auriesville, New York, to visit the Jesuit cemetery. As I’ve written before, it’s a peaceful place—quiet, serene, almost impossibly beautiful. But there’s a hitch. I’m not a Jesuit. Which, as far as I know, makes my permanent residency there legally questionable.

I’ve thought about it. I know I should deal with it. But as that old song goes, I just don’t know what to do with myself.

Maybe part of the hesitation is superstition. If you don’t think about your death, you can pretend you won’t have one. That logic doesn’t hold up well under scrutiny, but it’s comforting nonetheless. Still, when it comes to burial, you need to—well—plot.

Now I lay me down to rest.

But where?

Ashes to ashes, dust to… soil?

I wonder how many of you are wrestling with the same question. Do you delay too? Is procrastination our last shared hobby? What’s the right age to pick out a gravesite? To decide how you want to be buried—and in what fashion?

Because it’s more complicated now than it used to be. When I was growing up, the options were limited. There were a few nearby cemeteries. You died. You were buried in one of them. End of discussion.

Today, cremation has overtaken burial as the most popular choice. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, by 2035 nearly 80 percent of Americans will be cremated.

Unless they’re composted.

Yes—composted. Like coffee grounds and autumn leaves. This is the newest trend in places like Oregon, Vermont, Washington, California, and Colorado, where human remains can now be turned into fertilizer.

I understand the environmental impulse. I do. But I like to imagine something a bit more eternal than mulch.

Cremation—cheaper and more popular—is a perfectly sensible option. But it still leaves the “where” unresolved. In an urn? A columbarium? On the mantle? Scattered to the wind?

There’s also freezing. Cryogenics is real. I could be sealed in a canister, stored upside down, waiting centuries to be thawed and theoretically brought back to life.

But who would I know? Who would I hang out with?

So that’s a no to freezing, composting, and scattering my ashes over the ocean. With my luck, a breeze would pick the wrong moment and I’d wind up on someone’s beach umbrella.

So where do I lay myself down?

There’s a lovely cemetery in the town where I live. It would make sense, I suppose, to plan your eternal rest near the place where you endured your eternal struggle.

So why haven’t I done it? What’s holding me back? Is it the idea that once you commit, it’s like the Army—no turning back? Or do I still believe there are more chapters ahead? More places to discover?

Which brings me back to Auriesville.

The setting was stunning. The colors were unreal. It was as quiet as the most secluded corner of heaven.

“Wouldn’t this be a great place to be buried?” I asked Kevin.

“Yeah,” he said. “If you don’t want anyone to visit.”

And that, I think, settles it. Even in death, I’d still like some company. The real question isn’t where I want to be—it’s where the people I love would be most likely to stop by for a spell.

So if you were lucky enough to be educated by the Jesuits, visit Auriesville if you can. Say hello to the men who helped make us who we are.

I just might be there too.

Every time the Supreme Court reminds Washington that the Constitution still exists, the same chorus erupts. Experts are clutching pearls. Editorial boards are lighting candles. We’re told democracy is dying because federal agencies might—might—have to answer to someone who actually ran for office.

This week’s outrage, fueled by rulings curbing bureaucratic power and cases like Trump v. Slaughter, follows a familiar script: unelected administrators lose a little authority, and suddenly the sky is falling.

Here’s the inconvenient question no one wants to answer:

Who elected the bureaucracy?

Trump v. Slaughter isn’t about Donald Trump’s personality, his tone, or his tweets. It’s about whether career officials can sit inside agencies and quietly veto the lawful decisions of a president they don’t like—then call it “neutral governance” with a straight face.

For years, we were sold a fairy tale: that bureaucrats are apolitical monks, guided only by data, immune to ideology, nobly protecting us from the messy business of democracy. Meanwhile, those same agencies wrote the rules, enforced the rules, reinterpreted the rules, and delayed the rules—depending on who was in the Oval Office.

That’s not expertise. That’s power.

The Supreme Court, through Trump v. Slaughter and its broader rollback of Chevron deference, is finally saying the quiet part out loud: the executive branch is not a self-governing monastery. It answers to the president. And the president answers to voters.

Cue the meltdown.

Suddenly, the people who warned endlessly about an “imperial presidency” are openly defending an imperial bureaucracy—a permanent ruling class insulated from elections, accountability, and consequences. Executive power was dangerous when exercised by someone they disliked. Bureaucratic power, apparently, is sacred so long as it produces the “right” outcomes.

That’s not constitutional concern. That’s selective outrage.

The Constitution never created a government run by credentialed lifers with job protection thicker than Fort Knox. It created a system where power is supposed to be visible, traceable, and removable. If a president screws up, voters can fire him. If a bureaucrat screws up, he gets a pension.

Trump v. Slaughter blows a hole in the comforting myth that democracy is best protected by people who can’t be voted out. It reminds us that “guardrails” are not supposed to replace elections—and that internal resistance is not a constitutional role.

This isn’t about liking Trump. It’s about whether elections still mean something—or whether we’ve quietly outsourced governance to people whose names you’ll never know and whose authority you can’t challenge.

The Court isn’t ending democracy.

It’s telling the administrative state: you work for the public, not the other way around.

And that, more than anything else, is what has them so upset.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

There are places in America we still instinctively think of as insulated from chaos. Elite campuses. Ivy League schools. Old brick buildings where ideas are debated, not bullets.

Brown University was supposed to be one of those places.

On Saturday, that illusion shattered.

Reports out of Providence confirm a shooting on or near the Brown University campus, triggering lockdowns, a heavy law-enforcement response, and a wave of fear through students, faculty, and families watching from a distance. Details are still emerging, and authorities are being appropriately careful about what they release and when.

What is already clear is this: another academic community has been forced to confront the same brutal reality too many others already know.

The scramble for information followed a familiar and grim script — shelter-in-place alerts, sirens, armed officers moving building to building, parents refreshing news feeds, students texting loved ones from darkened rooms. The location may change, the architecture may be different, but the emotional toll is always the same.

Shock. Fear. Anger. Grief.

Brown is not just a university; it’s a symbol. A symbol of privilege, achievement, safety, and separation from the violence that so often defines other headlines. That symbolism makes this incident especially jarring — not because one campus deserves safety more than another, but because it reminds us that no place is immune anymore.

Not public schools.

Not private schools.

Not rural campuses.

Not Ivy League ones.

As investigators work to determine what happened and why, the larger truth hangs heavy in the air: our national conversation about violence, mental health, security, and responsibility remains unresolved — and students keep paying the price while adults argue.

Every shooting is followed by the same rituals: statements, vigils, lowered flags, carefully worded condolences. And then, quietly, we move on — until the next one. That cycle isn’t tragedy; it’s failure. And it’s a failure we keep choosing, measured not in press releases, but in empty classrooms and shattered families.

Frankie Flowers has been arrested again.

This time, the charges are assault, criminal obstruction of breathing, and endangering the welfare of a child — all stemming from an alleged domestic violence incident in Dutchess County. Flowers was arraigned, released on bail, and placed under electronic monitoring and probation supervision.

That alone should end any attempt to downplay what’s happening here.

But context matters — and the context makes this worse, not better.

This is not Frankie Flowers’ first encounter with serious domestic violence allegations. In 2024, Flowers faced multiple felony domestic violence charges in Connecticut, including allegations that he broke into a former partner’s home. That case did not end in vindication. It ended in a plea deal and a conditional discharge, with one very clear condition attached:

Do not get arrested again.

Do not engage in domestic violence.

That condition now appears to be in serious jeopardy.

For years, Flowers has benefited from the protective glow of being labeled a “community figure” — appearing at holiday events, charity functions, and public celebrations. But handing out toys does not negate choking allegations, and standing behind a microphone does not absolve someone of violence behind closed doors.

Domestic violence is not a lapse in judgment.

It is not a misunderstanding.

And it is not offset by public goodwill.

When allegations involve physical assault, obstruction of breathing, and a child present, the conversation must stop being about reputation and start being about responsibility. Communities do real harm when they hesitate to confront abuse simply because the accused is familiar or visible.

Frankie Flowers is not being judged for who he is in public.

He is being charged for what he is accused of doing in private.

The courts will decide guilt or innocence. But the community does not have to suspend its moral clarity while that process unfolds. Being well-known is not a shield. Being charitable is not a defense.

If anything, repeated allegations raise a harder question — not just about one man’s conduct, but about how often we confuse recognition with character.

Visibility is not virtue.

And accountability is not optional.

There are moments in life that don’t ask for speeches, clever observations, or any kind of polished response. They arrive quietly, unannounced, and the only thing they really require is that someone be there—fully, honestly, without flinching. Some moments don’t need words. They just need a witness.

We spend so much of our lives trying to say the right thing. Comforting the grieving, encouraging the struggling, steadying the overwhelmed—we reach instinctively for language, as if the perfect sentence could repair the fracture in someone else’s soul. But sometimes the most powerful thing you can offer is simply your presence. Sitting beside someone who’s hurting, or frightened, or trying desperately not to fall apart—your presence becomes the anchor.

I’ve come to believe that witnessing is a form of love, a form of generosity that doesn’t announce itself. It’s choosing to stand with another person in a moment that might be too heavy for them to stand in alone. It’s knowing that there are no magic words for heartbreak, no easy lines for grief, no tidy script for uncertainty. And so you stay. You breathe with them. You hold the space. You don’t give answers; you give yourself.

I’ve seen it on hospital floors, in parking lots after funerals, at kitchen tables where old resentments and fresh wounds overlap. And I’ve seen it in courtrooms—those cold, formal spaces where the stakes couldn’t be higher—when someone is being railroaded, unheard, dismissed, or crushed under the weight of a process that should protect them but instead steamrolls them. In those rooms, a true witness matters even more. Not someone to argue or outrage, but someone who simply sees the truth of what is happening. Someone whose presence says, You are not invisible. They may not hear you, but I do.

I’ve seen it in quiet moments with friends who didn’t need advice—just someone to witness their sorrow, their joy, their fear, their truth. Sometimes the greatest kindness isn’t what you say, but the silence you’re willing to share.

And there are moments for ourselves, too—moments we live through without an audience, but we remember who showed up. The friend who didn’t try to fix you, the sibling who stayed on the phone until the shaking stopped, the colleague who saw the stress you tried to hide and simply nodded in understanding. Those are witnesses. They mark our lives more than any speech ever could.

Maybe that’s the real miracle: being seen. Not solved, not analyzed—seen. To stand in a moment too big for one person and know that someone else is holding part of it with you.

Words matter, of course. I use them for a living. But I’ve learned that the deepest human connection is often wordless. It’s presence. It’s attention. It’s the courage to stay when someone is unraveling and to sit quietly in the storm until the air clears on its own.

In a world that loves noise, being a witness is a radical act of compassion.

Some moments don’t need words.
They just need a witness.
And sometimes, when life gets real and heavy and impossibly human—that witness is everything.

For years now, New Yorkers have been told to pretend not to notice.

Not the clouds of smoke hanging over playgrounds.

Not the skunky haze drifting through sidewalks, parks, stoops, subway entrances, and open car windows.

Not the fact that what was sold as “responsible legalization” quickly became public, unavoidable saturation.

Everyone was supposed to smile, shrug, and call it progress.

This week, one city finally broke ranks.

Glen Cove, Long Island — hardly a hotbed of reactionary politics — became the first municipality in New York State to say out loud what millions of residents have been thinking quietly: there is a time and a place for weed, and the middle of public life isn’t it.

Their new ordinance bans public marijuana smoking. Period.

Not possession.

Not private use.

Not medical access.

Just public smoking — the kind that turns sidewalks into hotboxes and parks into open-air dispensaries whether you consent or not.

And suddenly, the pearl-clutching began.

You’d think Glen Cove had outlawed personal freedom itself.

But here’s the inconvenient truth: legalization was never supposed to mean compulsory exposure. You can drink legally in New York, too — but you can’t crack a beer on a playground bench or stumble through a public park with an open bottle. Society decided long ago that some behaviors belong behind closed doors, not in shared civic space.

Marijuana’s defenders love to argue it’s “just like alcohol.”

Fine. Then treat it the same way.

What Glen Cove did wasn’t radical. It was adult.

A modest fine. Clear rules. No criminalization.

Just a boundary.

And boundaries, it turns out, are what New York has been allergic to for a decade.

We legalized before we regulated.

We celebrated before we thought.

We told parents, commuters, and neighbors that if they didn’t like the smell — the constant, unavoidable smell — that was their problem.

Glen Cove said otherwise.

It said public space belongs to everyone — not just the loudest, smokiest minority willing to impose their habits on the rest of us. It said quality of life matters. It said children shouldn’t have to walk through clouds of weed on their way to a swing set. It said “freedom” doesn’t mean forcing your choices into other people’s lungs.

That shouldn’t be controversial.

But in New York, sanity now passes for courage.

The real question isn’t whether Glen Cove went too far.

It’s how long the rest of the state will keep pretending not to smell what’s right in front of us.

— The Valley Viewpoint

Earlier today, Hoboken City Hall raised the Palestinian flag—and immediately reached for the “nothing to see here” binder.

According to the mayor, this was all very normal. Procedural. Almost boring. A routine act of cultural recognition, no different than raising the Italian flag, the Puerto Rican flag, the Progress Pride flag, or a ribbon for breast cancer awareness. Same pole, same rope, same talking points. Definitely not political. Please underline that twice.

Hoboken, we’re reminded, is just a humble municipality. It doesn’t dabble in international conflicts. It doesn’t take sides. It doesn’t read the news. It just raises flags when asked—apparently without Googling the date.

Because only after the flag was up did City Hall discover that the chosen day happened to coincide with the anniversary of the First Intifada. An awkward detail. An unfortunate coincidence. A whoopsie. One assumes the calendar was being used strictly for parking regulations.

But rest assured: this was not intentional. Which is supposed to make everyone feel better, even though it strongly suggests that nobody stopped to ask the most obvious question a middle school student would ask: Does today mean anything?

We’re told this was about neighbors. Mothers. Schoolchildren. Brothers and sisters who live in Hoboken. And that’s fair—Palestinian residents exist, belong, and deserve dignity like anyone else. No serious person disputes that.

What is disputed is the idea that a flag—this flag—raised now, on that date, can be waved away as a neutral celebration of culture. Flags are not potluck dishes. They don’t show up without context. They don’t politely check their symbolism at the door.

City Hall’s defense is consistency. Hoboken raises flags for lots of groups. Ukraine. Israel. India. Ecuador. So excluding Palestinians would itself be a statement. Inclusion demands symmetry, even if common sense suggests maybe—just maybe—some discretion is warranted when the world is on fire.

This is bureaucracy’s favorite trick: hide behind process and call it principle.

We’re also told the city takes no position on international conflict. Which is an interesting claim to make while issuing a multi-paragraph statement explaining why the symbol you raised definitely shouldn’t be interpreted as taking a position.

The mayor says he leads the entire city. Everyone is equal. Everyone should feel seen. Everyone should engage with grace and dialogue.

All admirable. All carefully worded. All missing the point.

Leadership isn’t just about approving requests and hoping reality cooperates. It’s about judgment. About knowing when “routine” stops being routine. About understanding that symbols don’t become neutral just because a press release insists they are.

Hoboken didn’t intend to make a statement.

It just managed to make one anyway—then asked everyone to politely pretend it didn’t happen.

Sometimes a story comes along that perfectly captures why so many Americans no longer trust the immigration system, the courts, or the people running either of them.

The Kilmar Abrego Garcia ruling is one of those stories.

Here’s the plain truth — the part nobody in the activist press will say out loud:

Kilmar Abrego Garcia should have been deported.

He had a lawful removal order.

He exhausted his appeals.

He was not some mystery case stuck in limbo.

He was ordered out of the country under existing U.S. law.

But instead of the system doing what the law requires, we now have an Obama-appointed federal judge stepping in to declare that ICE acted improperly — not because Garcia had any right to remain, but because she chose to reinterpret the process in a way that gives him yet another lifeline.

And just like that, a straightforward deportation becomes a political chess match.

This is how it always goes:

When immigration law is enforced, there’s a scramble to find a technicality, a loophole, a procedural nit to crack open just wide enough to let the entire case spill out onto the floor. The end result? A judge ordering the immediate release of someone whose legal status was never in doubt.

The message to ICE agents is unmistakable:

Follow the law, and you’ll still be second-guessed by the bench.

The message to the public is worse:

Our immigration laws only matter when a judge feels like enforcing them.

The government didn’t “violate” Garcia’s rights by deporting him.

They executed a removal order — a lawful one.

The kind the American people expect to be executed consistently.

But in today’s system, the law isn’t the law.

It’s a suggestion.

A starting point.

A soft boundary waiting for a creative judge to turn into a political statement.

Judge Paula Xinis didn’t just free one man from custody.

She signaled, yet again, that immigration enforcement is optional — but judicial activism is mandatory.

This is why the border is a mess.

This is why migrants keep coming.

This is why public trust collapses every year.

Because we no longer enforce what the law actually says.

We enforce what someone in a robe wishes it said.

And that is the Valley Viewpoint.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

There’s a certain crowd these days that loves to flatten everything into nothing. Break it down to molecules, atoms, fabric—reduce anything meaningful until it becomes meaningless. The American flag, they argue, is no different. “Just a symbol,” they say. Nothing sacred. Nothing special. Fly it, burn it, stomp on it—who cares?

How would you react if your coworkers walked into the office tomorrow wearing pointy white hoods made out of bedsheets?

But if symbols are so trivial, here’s a simple Valley Viewpoint question:

Still “just a symbol”? No discomfort? No meaning attached?

Or take the Rainbow Flag—beloved by the LGBTQ community, flown proudly over parades and storefronts. If someone torched that in the town square, would the defenders of “it’s just a symbol” shrug that off too? If not, why not?

It’s only a symbol… right?

Years ago, artist Andres Serrano presented a warm and uplifting piece called Immersion—a Crucifix dunked in a glass of his own urine. Critics swooned. Christians, predictably, didn’t. They failed to appreciate the enlightened view that mocking what people find sacred is simply “art.” Silly Christians.

And in a twist of artistic courage, Serrano never submerged Mohammed in the same glass. Must’ve been an oversight. Or maybe courage has a very selective beat.

Here’s the thing most people pretending to be above all this don’t want to admit:

Symbols matter because ideas matter.

And ideas—“mere ideas”—are why people fight, die, sacrifice, build nations, protect freedoms, and yes, burn the very flag that symbolizes those freedoms.

I never suggested anyone lose the right to fly—or burn—whatever flag they damn well please. That’s America. Have at it.

What I refused to do was silently applaud behavior I find contemptible. And somehow, that is the problem. My expression bothers the people who insist their expression must be tolerated, celebrated, and protected at all costs.

Funny how freedom works until someone else uses it.

Because the irony is unavoidable:

The very people who preach that a flag is “just a symbol” are the same people who march, chant, wear, wave, post, and promote their own symbols everywhere they go.

Expression for them. Silence from you.

Sorry—wrong show, wrong state, wrong century.

This is the Valley Viewpoint.

Where freedom cuts both ways.

THE VALLEY VIEWPOINT

Here we go again.

Another data point drops, this time from the Center for Immigration Studies, and suddenly the political class in Minnesota is clutching their pearls like they’ve just discovered gambling is happening in the casino. According to ten years of Census ACS data, 81 percent—yes, eighty-one—of Somali-headed households in Minnesota rely on at least one form of public assistance. That’s not a typo. That’s not a rounding error. That’s not “taken out of context.” That’s the number. And the minute it landed, the usual suspects sprinted to microphones to explain why the public shouldn’t worry about the public footing the bill.

This is the kind of story that gets brushed aside by editorial boards and “fact-checkers,” but for the people actually paying taxes in Minnesota—the ones who don’t have the luxury of ideology—the reality is a little harder to ignore. When four out of five households in any community depend on welfare, that’s not a “talking point.” That’s a systemic failure. It’s an economy that isn’t working, an immigration system that isn’t adapting, and a political leadership terrified of saying any of that out loud.

And let’s be honest: this didn’t happen in a vacuum.

Minnesota has spent the better part of two decades congratulating itself on being a “national model” for refugee resettlement while quietly side-stepping the parts of the model that aren’t quite working. Meanwhile, the Somali community—an established, deeply rooted community with enormous cultural and economic contributions—also finds itself unfairly entangled in the fallout from the massive fraud scandals, ICE raids, and political grandstanding that have dominated the headlines. Minnesota officials seem far more concerned about the optics than the outcomes.

And outcomes matter.

The average Minnesotan—working two jobs, juggling childcare, and watching property taxes climb—is told not to worry. That everything’s fine. That questioning the sustainability of welfare participation is somehow impolite. That pointing out numbers published by the U.S. Census Bureau is “dangerous.” Since when did arithmetic become controversial?

Here’s the truth no politician in St. Paul wants to say:

You cannot build a functioning social safety net when the net becomes the default setting instead of the emergency measure. And you certainly can’t pretend that a system is working when 81 percent of any group is stuck relying on it.

This isn’t about demonizing a community. It’s about calling out a political culture that has confused compassion with denial—and then stuck the taxpayer with the bill.

Minnesota leaders love to talk about being “bold” and “forward-thinking.” Here’s a bold idea: be honest. Admit the problem. Fix the system. Empower people to move off assistance, not stay trapped in it. And stop pretending that ignoring the data will make it go away.

Because numbers don’t lie.

Even when politicians do.