A Hill With A View

 Originally published January 12, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5854-a-letter-to-all-jewish-institutions-still-complying-with-covid-rules It’s time to put an end to this.  No more masking our children.  No more quarantining a whole class when there’s a positive test.  No more demands to vaccinate.  No more bans on parents entering the buildings.  If it wasn’t done in 2019, it should not be done in 2022. Seriously, enough is enough.  Schools, shuls, and everything in-between need to stop taking the rules placed by petty tyrants in Albany, Washington, and beyond seriously.  They certainly don’t take themselves seriously.  How many examples do we need to see of Democrats partying in the free state of Florida before we say enough?  How many Democrats get to go clubbing, or to a concert, or a restaurant without social distancing or masking before the plebeians demand equal treatment?   It’s been revealed this week what many who consume non-legacy media have known f

 Originally published January 5, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5809-one-year-since-a-tragic-mistake A year ago, Republicans allowed themselves to fall prey to a short-sighted and false narrative that caused large numbers of them to do something that they, and many people around the country, regret.  The nation has paid a heavy price for the failures of these few, and the repercussions of that decision will be felt for years to come.  I am referring, of course, to January 5. No, that’s not a typo.  January 5 was the day of the Georgia special election where two Democrats won when they shouldn’t have, and the balance of power in Congress shifted to the Left for the first time in a decade.   Sure, everyone in the Democrat-run media will ceaselessly discuss the events of the following day, January 6, the day when cosplay morons who should have gone to Comic-Con ended up in the U.S. Capitol. There are enough strange stories, video footage, and eye-witness testimony

 Originally published December 29, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5768-can-new-york-still-be-considered-a-free-state “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” - Ronald Regan This is the direction New York is heading in.  Freedom, while not yet extinct, can certainly be classified as endangered under Governor Kathy Hochul.  It didn’t even take a generation - just a couple of years of constant fear-mongering and claims that the government can accomplish something it clearly cannot. This week, Hochul signed a series of Executive Orders that removes the ability for local Representatives to speak out on behalf of their constituents.  Hochul’s rise to power m

Originally published December 22, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5723-how-far-is-albany-going-to-go The state-imposed nightmare that New Yorkers have been living under is continuing, as Governor Kathy Hochul and her comrades continue to enact greater and greater impositions and decrees on the people who elected her predecessor.  This is not a national issue; rather it’s a local one, as states with Republican governors do not have to fear the authoritarian overreach of their ruling class. After forced masking and vaccination, the question New Yorkers must ask is: How far will they go? Assembly Bill A416 was introduced last January, and has recently been removed from the legislative docket from its sponsor.  It seems that even New York Democrats aren’t insane enough to pass it, but it gives us a glimpse into the thought process of the most extreme wing of the Legislature.   The Bill, four pages in length, gives the Governor of New York the authority to detain any

 Originally published December 15, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5674-the-democrats-g-d-complex Obviously, Governor Kathy Hochul doesn’t read the  Queens Jewish Link , because she just doubled down on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s garbage policy.  Until January 15, 2022, all businesses must require everyone to wear a mask while indoors unless they have a vaccine mandate. Putting aside the insanity of this policy, it actually shines a light on Democrats’ mentality: They think they (and government in general) have G-d-like powers to control anything they want.   COVID is the epitome of this thought process.  As Joe Biden famously said in October 2020: “I’m going to shut down the virus, not the country.”  Fourteen months later, the opposite came true: The economy is in shambles, with inflation at its highest point in almost 40 years, and the number of people who have died of COVID is greater under Biden than it was under Trump. This is because, despite his saying to the

 Originally published December 8, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5629-garbage-mayor-ends-garbage-term-with-garbage-policy Lame duck Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a truly immoral and anti-scientific policy this week, and if the world has any common sense left, it will be ignored until it’s stopped in court. His exit from the Mayor’s Office cannot come fast enough. This is, of course, his new vaccine mandate, which not only infringes on the bodily autonomy of New Yorkers (something that de Blasio himself considers a constitutional right regarding abortion), but it will cause immense harm to businesses and workers in his city, especially those in the racial minorities that he claims to care deeply about. The mandate announced by de Blasio orders all private businesses in the city to force their employees to take two doses of the COVID vaccine. Unlike President Biden’s Executive Order, which was stopped by the courts, this is  all businesses, regardless of number

 Originally published December 8, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5603-do-socialists-recognize-the-right-for-israel-to-exist Congressman Jamaal Bowman is under fire from the Democratic Socialists of America. His great crime? He went to Israel and visited with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The reaction from the extreme Left over this seemingly normal act opens up the question: Is the American Socialist movement competing with regimes like Iran in seeking the total annihilation of Israel? Bowman is no great lover of Israel. He is from the same mold as fellow New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and is part of the same “Squad” that consistently attacks Israel – both in the media and on the floor of the House of Representatives. He, along with Black Lives Matter activist-turned-Congresswoman Cori Bush, joined AOC, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Presley, and Rashida Tlaib among “the Squad” upon his election in 2020. Bowman primaried and defeated longtime Representative Eliot En

 Originally published December 1, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5583-should-we-fear-omicron “Looking at the mildness of the symptoms that we are seeing, currently there is no reason for panicking as we don’t see severely ill patients.  I also checked with the hospital, some of the hospitals in my area, and one of the biggest hospitals only has one patient currently that’s COVID-positive on a ventilator, and they don’t know if it’s Delta or if it’s Omicron.  We acknowledge that it might change going forward, but the hype that’s been created currently out there in the media and worldwide doesn’t correlate with the clinical picture and doesn’t warrant to just cut us off from any traveling and ban South Africa as if we are the villains in the whole process.  It should not be like that.” This is what Dr. Angelique Coetzee, one of the first to suspect that South Africans were dealing with a new strain of COVID, told Reuters.  Coetzee, a private practitioner and chai

 Originally published November 24, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5543-prosecutors-matter-now-more-than-ever In 2019, the Queens community mobilized to elect moderate Democrat Melinda Katz to the Queens District Attorney’s office.  In 2021, the Nassau County community mobilized to elect Anne Donnelly as their DA. The necessity of that mobilization has become far more obvious this past week than it was at the time, but the electorate of those communities can breathe a sigh of relief that other communities cannot. Tiffany Cabán, a Democratic Socialist backed by Leftist mega-donor George Soros who lost to Melinda Katz by a mere sixty votes, would certainly have chosen her prosecutions based on race, not the crime or criminal records. Todd Kaminsky, who co-wrote the No Cash Bail law in New York State and was demolished by Donnelly by 20 points, would likely have included that calculus in his prosecutions.  While neither of them became District Attorney, that doesn’

 Originally published November 17, 2021 https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/5493-america-attacked-by-terrorists-and-no-one-cares Did you know that Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen stormed the former U.S. Embassy last week and held U.S. citizens hostage?  Unless you’re an avid reader of the Washington Free Beacon, you probably didn’t. Why was such a monumental story largely ignored by the vast majority of politicians and media? Taking a step back, Yemen has been in a state of civil war since 2014.  It is essentially a proxy war for a full-scale conflict in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia backing the Yemeni government and Iran backing the Houthi rebels.  In 2015, the U.S. officially closed its embassy, but still left staff in the building. In 2018, reports revealed that the U.S. was selling arms to the Saudis, which were then sold to the Yemeni government. In January 2021, the Trump administration designated the Houthis a terror group, and a month later Biden remov