Opinion

Perception is reality. This is a general rule in politics. It doesn’t matter that the economy was improving under President Biden, and continues to do so under President Trump. The perception is that things have been unaffordable since COVID hit, and politically, whomever is in charge will take the hit.

It has been 25 years since a major production studio released a movie based on a biblical story (assuming we are only considering the original Bible). That changed last month with Angel Studio’s release of the full-length animated musical David, which tells the story of Dovid HaMelech. If you are someone who goes to movie theaters, I highly recommend taking your children to see this one.

Let’s just say it: the story of Esther is not the courageous story we have been force-fed for the last 4,000 years. It is the original exposé on a corrupt imperial regime, a beauty-pageant-industrial complex, and what I am going to call—without hesitation—the Deep Palace State.

If you want to understand why Democrats cannot be allowed to make firearm policy in this country, you do not have to look any further than right here in Queens. Amidst a rise in crime following the George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020, and an absolutely inept mayor, we saw the ability of police to keep streets safe diminish. New York State, with the heavy backing of some imbecile named Zohran Mamdani, passed a series of bail reform laws that allowed those accused of certain crimes to be released without bail. (Side note: One of those offenses is dismembering a corpse.) So, of course, crime went up. When the punishment for committing a crime is being released to the streets, what is deterring a person from committing a crime?

It is no secret that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has had a less-than-stellar first month and a half as mayor of New York City. While the mayor touted his year-over-year drop in overall crime, which dropped by 6% as compared to January of 2025, he has failed across the board in most other areas. His policy of not forcing homeless people inside during the extreme cold resulted in the deaths of 18 homeless people.

In the wake of the death of George Floyd, support for the BLM movement was at an all-time high. People started to believe that police were mowing down Black people with reckless abandon, that applicants with Black-sounding names were far less likely to get a job, and that we were one election away from a return to Jim Crow. However, as time went on, we learned that many of these assumptions were wrong. In fact, there was a tremendous backlash to the BLM movement, spurred on by the rise in crime that resulted from many of the policies put forward by its champions, including defunding the police. At a certain point, the general public became bored with constantly being told about the victimization of Black people, and they moved on.