Opinion

For nearly two years, my colleagues in the Assembly Minority Conference and I have been imploring the Farm Laborers Wage Board to keep the overtime threshold for farm workers at 60 hours per week. With the board set to make its recommendations to Gov. Kathy Hochul next month, I am calling on the governor, once again, to […]

Some of the United States’ most important relationships are with other countries in the Americas. They often receive less attention than they deserve. These relationships can be challenging, but there are few challenges more important than working effectively with our neighbors.  The promise and challenge of forging meaningful collaboration with Mexico and the nations of Central

As a rule, most emergencies are obvious to the individuals experiencing them. In New York, though, that basic logic doesn’t apply. Gov. Kathy Hochul, again, extended her own “emergency powers” through Aug. 22, despite COVID-19 cases and fatality levels dropping in an overwhelming majority of the state. Simply stated, this is an absolutely brutal abuse

Here’s a question: When was the last time at least half of Americans said the government in Washington, D.C. could be trusted to do the right thing all or most of the time?  It was right after 9/11, according to the Pew Research Center, and that was really just a blip. Before that, you’d have

Imminent recession looms Consumer inflation reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [on July 13] ticked up to 9.1 percent the past 12 months, the highest since 1981. It has to be a crushing blow to any chances of avoiding a recession in the U.S. this year. Food prices are up 10.4 percent unadjusted

The United States contributes more than any other nation to the search for global peace and prosperity. Our leadership is essential in dealing with the world’s difficult and confounding problems.  We are the foremost guardian of that peace and prosperity, shaping the international order more than any other nation. We have strong partners, especially the

Since taking office, Gov. Kathy Hochul has insisted a full review of the state’s COVID-19 pandemic response is forthcoming. Yet, as the weeks and months linger on, no such report has been released nor has the administration even hired any consultants or even begun taking contract bids to get to the bottom of what happened.

Many years ago, I was in the audience when the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil-rights activist and election mobilizer, gave a speech. He often used the catchphrase, “Keep hope alive!” when he spoke, and he did so that time. The audience picked it up as a chant, shouting out in unison: “Keep hope alive!” It

Gov. Kathy Hochul [recently] convened an “extraordinary session” of the New York Legislature in a knee-jerk overreaction to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined New York’s gun-licensing laws to be unconstitutional. And in typical Albany fashion, a new level of dysfunction was reached. The public, the legislature and anyone not sitting at the governor’s negotiating

The Supreme Court concluded its 2021 term with another blockbuster ruling, this time in West Virginia v. EPA, which struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2015 Clean Power Plan under the Obama administration that sought to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act even though the law never contemplated doing so. In [this decision]