Opinion

Back in mid-November, when President Joe Biden signed the latest stopgap funding bill to keep the government operating, official Washington, D.C. no doubt heaved a sigh of relief. The measure, which originated in the fractious House, passed there only with support from the Democratic minority — in fact, many more Democrats than Republicans voted for […]

Small businesses are the backbone of New York’s communities and one of the most important elements of our state’s economy. Data from Empire State Development shows a whopping 98 percent of all businesses in New York state are classified as small businesses and those businesses account for more than half the total workforce in the

Americans are fed up with politics. That’s the obvious conclusion of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, which found many of us have “unrelentingly negative” views of politics and elected officials. It’s understandable that people are discouraged. There are plenty of reasons to feel that way. I’m not especially alarmed at the findings

Nearly every public poll conducted in recent years has reflected a similar sentiment: crime is a significant problem in New York state. Yet [on Nov. 16], we were reminded that the public’s sense of urgency isn’t shared by Gov. Hochul and her legislative allies. The signing of the Clean Slate Act, which automatically seals criminal

Now that the dust has settled on the House speakership fight, both Washington, D.C. and the media have been eager to move on to other issues: the Israel-Hamas war, the Trump trials, the recent elections, and, on Capitol Hill, a potential government shutdown, and various funding bills. These are all important, but we shouldn’t let

Tom Homan, the former acting Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency under President Donald Trump, says, “The Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, last year, seized enough fentanyl to kill every person in America.” In an interview with Rebecca Weber, CEO of the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), on her “Better

Australia may not be the first nation to come to mind when we think about important U.S. allies. It’s on the far side of the globe, an area of the world we often neglect. Its largest city, Sydney, is a 22-hour flight from New York City. Most Americans have never traveled there. But, in fact,

New York’s college campuses are no place for antisemitism, hate speech, or violence of any kind, and any university administration that fails to ensure as much has no business running a school in our state. Incidents at Cornell University, where a student was arrested for promoting gruesome violence against the Jewish community, and in our

It would be a stretch to say that the U.S. government came to a standstill after GOP members of the House unseated Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House at the start of October. The Senate and executive branch both kept working to move their priorities forward during the three weeks before the House finally

Back in 1944, songsters Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer gave us an uplifting piece of music: it was called “Accentuate the Positive.” Nearly 80 years later, Michael Seifert, the founder, CEO, and president of PublicSq (Public Square), is doing just that; as the lyric goes, he’s latching on to the affirmative. In a recent interview