Featured Commentary category, Page 127
S.E. Cupp: Politics & culture need to break free of resentment
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of feeling sickened. Our nasty politics of revenge, our unabating obsession with hating the other side, our too-quick-to-cancel culture and our fetishization of extreme purity is not only exhausting but it’s making us sick. It’s in President Trump’s puerile tweets and anger-drenched...
Jessica Myrick: Trump’s love of fast food may be bad for public health
“You are what you eat,” the old adage goes. But are you also what you watch? In a media-saturated world, it is worth considering the degree to which our exposure to media about food choices can — either directly or in more subtle ways — shape our own food beliefs...
Isaac Brown: Curbing emissions benefits all Pennsylvanians
Pennsylvanians realize that natural gas plays a significant role in the state’s economy. However, the state’s energy resources should be developed responsibly by minimizing natural gas waste and air pollution from new and existing oil and gas infrastructure. To that end, we applaud the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf as...
Kevin Walters: Pros & cons of civilian review boards
Last month’s reintroduction of a proposed ordinance by the Allegheny County Council to create a civilian police review panel is sharply dividing the community between those who believe it necessary to prevent or detect misconduct on the part of county law enforcement officers and those who believe such a civilian...
Walter Williams: Founders viewed democracy as tyranny
During President Trump’s impeachment trial, we’ll hear a lot of talk about our rules for governing. One frequent claim is that our nation is a democracy. If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny. In fact,...
John Stossel: Freebies for everyone
The Iowa Caucus, the real start of the 2020 presidential primaries, is next week. Who’s favored to win? Sadly, the smart money says it’s the candidate who’s promised Americans the most “free” stuff. Six months ago, my staff and I tallied the candidates’ promises. All wanted to give away trillions...
Colin McNickle: Allegheny County’s real economic performance
Elected and appointed government officials have a troubling habit of engaging in what we’ll call “sound bite promotion.” They go on a radio or television program making wondrous claims of economic progress yet offer only vague support of those claims and seldom are challenged by their interviewers. Thus, for the...
Jonah Goldberg: Discrediting Bolton won’t be easy for Team Trump
“I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the count.” Those words were bellowed by John Bolton in a Tallahassee library in December 2000, when he was part of a team of Republican lawyers trying to stop the Florida recount of votes cast in the presidential race between...
Pat Buchanan: Hillary puts Bernie in her basket of deplorables
“Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician.” So says Hillary Clinton of her former Senate colleague and 2016 rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders. Her assessment of Sanders’ populist-socialist agenda? “It’s all just baloney and I feel so...
Dr. Lawrence John: On mental health, physicians should lead by example
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf launched a campaign earlier this month aimed at expanding access to mental health services for all Pennsylvanians. As president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, I applaud Wolf’s commitment to combating this growing issue. While strengthening insurance parity and network adequacy serve as essential solutions, an equally...
Jonah Goldberg: Our nation is paying for Trump’s refusal to be presidential
I’ve long argued that Donald Trump’s presidency will end poorly because he’s a person of bad character. I still think that’s true, though I very much doubt the impeachment trial now underway will result in his removal. Regardless of its outcome, his impeachment illustrates the damage bad character can do...
S.E. Cupp: On Hunter Biden, Democrats must tread carefully
When Republicans threatened to call Hunter Biden, the embattled son of former Vice President Joe Biden and walking political cautionary tale, as a witness for the impeachment trial of President Trump, at least some Democrats seemed open to the idea. So long as it meant Democrats got to hear from...
Peter Morici: Michael Bloomberg’s wrong answer to inequality
Inequality and economic growth have been central themes in national elections since John Kennedy’s campaign. The Clintons, Barack Obama and the latest crop headed by Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg want to give us freer access to health care, higher education (and debt forgiveness), child care...
Colleen Hroncich: First Amendment on docket at Supreme Court
Single mother Kendra Espinoza never dreamed that sending her daughters to a Christian school in Kalispell, Mont., would lead her to the national stage. But last week, her lawsuit, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, and its far-reaching implications could impact Pennsylvanians’ education...
Jonah Goldberg: Democratic battle reminiscent of 2004 Kerry-Dean race
As of this writing, the Democratic presidential contest looks very fluid, with four candidates bunched up in Iowa and New Hampshire. But the sudden relevance of foreign policy, thanks to the confrontation with Iran, has made it look more and more like a two-person race between former Vice President Joe...
Frank Dermody: Let’s not turn back the clock on affordable health care
When people don’t have health insurance — especially people with preexisting conditions like diabetes, breast cancer, high blood pressure or even pregnancy (yes, that counts) — they skip vital care and often go into debt or even bankruptcy to pay bills, or simply die. This was much more common in...
Walter Williams: Diversity & inclusion insanity
It’s nearly impossible to have even a short conversation with a college administrator, politician or chief executive without the words diversity and inclusion dropping from their lips. Diversity and inclusion appear to be the end-all and be-all of their existence. So, I thought I’d begin this discussion by first looking...
John Stossel: We complain, but businesses make our lives better
Reporters complain about business. We overlook the constant improvements in our lives made possible by greedy businesses competing for your money. Think about how our access to entertainment has improved. “When I was a kid,” says Sean Malone in a new video for the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), “my...
Leroy Renninger: Mitch McConnell and a fair trial
Was the rule of law meant to apply equally to everyone in our republic? Or is it permissible that it apply to only the “little people” while the wealthy and well-connected may cast it aside? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he has made up his mind that President Trump...
Pat Buchanan: Trump’s in-kind contribution to Bernie Sanders
The directed killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s blood-soaked field marshal in the “forever war” of the Middle East, has begun to roil the politics of both the region and the USA. A stunned and shaken Iran retaliated by firing a dozen missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq. Yet,...
Colin McNickle: Past time to fix property assessment/appeals mess
Much of the angst and legal wrangling over property assessments in Allegheny County and statewide could be eliminated by instituting mandatory regular reassessments that incorporate standardized norms, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “The state should just end, or curtail appeals, by bringing Pennsylvania’s assessment practices...
Jonah Goldberg: Inconvenient evidence puts GOP senators on spot
President Donald J. Trump was impeached on Thursday. I know that he was technically impeached when the House voted to do so in December. But the truth is, as a political and historical matter, Thursday was the day. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s strategy — brilliant to fans, incomprehensible to foes...
Mark Compton: Safety drives every decision at turnpike commission
Despite the best efforts of the transportation industry nationally working together to reduce fatal and serious-injury crashes, nearly 40,000 people die each year in highway-related incidents; on average, 15 of those occur on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Every year, dozens of roadway workers, first responders and tow-truck operators are killed; we...
Earl Tilford: How Martin Luther King Jr. changed hearts
My father was a Presbyterian minister in rural northwest Alabama from 1961 to 1965. I came of age there, then left the University of Alabama with an M.A. in history in 1969. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gov. George C. Wallace framed the historical context of a changing...
Joseph Horton: The Methodist Church is coming apart
The initial reports read to me a bit like the losers won, but the church of my upbringing is on the verge of coming apart after decades of internal turmoil. The details of the deal will be important, but leaders of the United Methodist Church have agreed in principle to...
