Featured Commentary category, Page 119
Matthew Fleischer: Georgia’s coronavirus data made reopening look safe. The numbers were a lie
Nothing about the spread of the coronavirus or the nature of the disease suggests that it’s safe to get back to business as usual. And yet “reopen” is the word on almost every American’s lips, despite apocalyptic warnings from public heath experts suggesting that, without an aggressive national public health...
Dennis Davin and Russell Redding: Staying in, carrying out in Pa.
Dennis Davin is the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Russell Redding is the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Since the beginning of time, food has been something that brings people together. Pennsylvania is home to more than 26,500 restaurants — from the classics...
Dr. Rachel Levine: Medical workers must care for themselves, too
Dr. Rachel Levine is Pennsylvania Secretary of Health. The 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic is taking an emotional toll on everyone. But one group of Pennsylvanians is facing unique challenges during this pandemic: our front-line workers in health care. As a physician, I understand how emotionally exhausting it is to care...
Antony Davies and James Harrigan: Lessons from skateboarders’ civil disobedience
Pittsburgh Public Works Director Mike Gable made quite a splash recently when he ordered that the West Penn Skate Park in Polish Hill be filled with sand. He did this in reaction to people’s desire to use the skate park for its actual purpose: skateboarding. Speaking of the young people...
David Hogg: Civilian Coronavirus Corps fails to solve problem of Wolf’s making
Gov. Tom Wolf is bringing to life the maxim: Never let a good crisis go to waste. As the covid-19 pandemic continues, Wolf wants to roll out a new program that will cripple the state financially and supposedly fix a problem the governor himself is causing. Through his Commonwealth Civilian...
Michael Madison and Christopher Briem: Shaping the Pittsburgh region post-pandemic
Michael Madison is a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh who published Pittsblog, a 2004 to 2011 weblog about economic development and Pittsburgh’s post-steel renewal. Christopher Briem is a regional economist with the Urban & Regional Analysis program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban...
Colleen Shogan: Lessons in perseverance from the suffrage movement
The story of American women’s fight for their right to vote is full of inspiring examples of persevering through difficult times, and Pittsburgh women led the way. During the current health crisis, we must find sources of inspiration that can help us cope during these unprecedented times. As vice chair...
Leah Watt: Working from home makes better workers
I can honestly say what many cannot — I love my job. As a software engineer, I love the challenges and rewards, the product, the company and the intelligent, passionate, infuriatingly arrogant but wildly talented colleagues I have come to call friends. Before coronavirus forced me to set up shop...
Pat Buchanan: Coexistence with China or Cold War II?
Under fire for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump, his campaign and his party are moving to lay blame for the 80,000 U.S. dead at the feet of the Communist Party of China and, by extension, its longtime general secretary, President Xi Jinping. There is talk on Capitol...
Jeff Kupfer: More taxes, covid-19 could cripple Pa. shale
Jeff Kupfer is a former acting deputy secretary of energy in the Bush administration and an adjunct professor of policy in Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. Each day brings more evidence of the economic wrecking ball unleashed by the coronavirus. And as the country deals with the crisis, that wrecking...
Jack Troy: Alarmed by Trump’s actions on coronavirus
Dear Rep. John Joyce, Thank you for your op-ed “America must hold China accountable for coronavirus” (May 6, TribLIVE). Dr. Joyce, some of us feel that the word “partly” might have been inserted between “China” and “accountable.” As someone who has lived through the administrations of 14 presidents, I have...
S.E. Cupp: The undeniable deterioration of the president
Every parent has warily confronted the hypothetical question: What would you do if you suspected your child was unwell? Not physically, but emotionally unwell, or mentally unstable? Imagine learning your teenager, for example, had been yelling demeaning slurs at the girls in his class, harassing them and calling them names....
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler: Pennsylvania deserves better
Pennsylvania’s fight against the covid-19 pandemic has upended its economy and rendered one in four workers jobless, all while putting our seniors in care homes at greater risk because of a serious policy flaw by Gov. Tom Wolf. In mid-March, the governor issued an executive order — he has run...
John Stossel: Ban plastic bags! No, never mind!
Recently, many politicians were in such a hurry to ban plastic bags. California and Hawaii banned them, then New York. Then Oregon, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont passed laws against them. More than 400 cities did, too. Why? Because plastic bags are evil , didn’t you know? “Look at the damage...
Walter Williams: Bad marks on nation’s report card
The Department of Education just released results of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in U.S. history, civics and geography given in 2018 to thousands of American eighth-graders: “Grade 8 Students’ NAEP Scores Decline in Geography and U.S. History; Results in Civics Unchanged Since 2014.” The tests were...
Paul Finkelman: Intellectual property and protecting Pa. jobs
Paul Finkelman, Ph.D., is president of Gratz College and a former law professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The novel coronavirus has ravaged Pennsylvania, forcing more than 1.5 million of our neighbors to the unemployment line. This represents 23% of the Keystone State’s workforce. The devastation far...
Candace McKinley: Covid-19 pandemic underscores urgency of ending cash bail
Candace McKinley is the lead organizer for the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, which is working to end cash bail in Philadelphia. The mission of the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund is to end the use of cash bail in Philadelphia and, until that day comes, post bail for as many of...
Alessandra Hirsch: A GI Bill for health care workers
Alessandra Hirsch, M.D., is a first-year resident physician in obstetrics and gynecology in Chicago, Ill. On Sunday, March 15, the single day that I was given to adjust from a full month of working overnight to my next rotation in gynecologic surgery, I received an email with new instructions: all...
Nicholas Goldberg: Is it time for Drs. Fauci and Birx to quit on principle?
How long can Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci keep this up? We’ve been watching their faces, and we know as surely as we know ourselves that they are in agony working for an administration ruled by chaos and led by an irresponsible enemy of science who gets his facts wrong,...
Bryan Mark Rigg: Nurses are sacred part of our society, military
This month, National Nurses Month, we honor nurses throughout history, noting the brave care they are presently administering for victims of the coronavirus. All of us have benefited from nursing care, from the time we were born to the end of our lives. The word nurse comes from old-French nourice,...
Rep. John Joyce: America must hold China accountable for coronavirus
Over the past few months, the coronavirus has raced across the world, attacking innocent victims and causing economic strife. This unprecedented crisis has mobilized President Trump and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to take aggressive action to slow its spread. Too many Pennsylvanians have lost their livelihoods and, in some tragic...
Pat Buchanan: Will Depression II dictate Trump’s fate?
The coronavirus pandemic has killed nearly 70,000 Americans and induced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. And if history is our guide, the economic crisis, which has produced 30 million unemployed Americans in six weeks, may prove more enduring, ruinous and historic than the still-rising and tragic death...
Dr. Cornelius Clancy: To combat coronavirus, we may need more antibiotics
Cornelius Clancy, M.D., is an associate professor of medicine and director of the XDR Pathogen Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. The coronavirus infects and kills more Americans each day. The number of confirmed cases just eclipsed 1.2 million and the death toll now exceeds 70,000. While the standard advice...
Tom Sharbaugh: There is an increase in business startups — really?
One of the surprising trends in the recent shutdown of the U.S. economy is an uptick in the number of people in Pennsylvania who are starting companies. Why would anyone have the confidence to start a business now? The answer is that many people have more confidence in themselves than...
Jonah Goldberg: Burden of proof on Joe Biden to deflect Tara Reade accusations
One of the problems with politics these days is that it’s increasingly difficult to hold a single line of argument without veering out of that lane and ramming into something else. The pundits and politicians fighting over Tara Reade’s accusations against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden often careen around...
