Featured Commentary category, Page 143
Scott Paul: Toomey out of touch with steel tariff reality
Sen. Pat Toomey is placing economic philosophy above the interests of Pennsylvania’s steelmakers and workers. Toomey is a zealous disciple of free trade, even when our national security may be at stake. It’s time for the senator to change course. There’s a very current example of why he should: The...
Vince Mercuri: The dynamics of hope
Artists, marketing experts, campaign strategists and spiritual leaders all utilize hope as a means to promote their respective messages to influence their audiences. Definitions of hope can be quite abstract. Is it optimism? Is it a wish? Is it a goal? Is it a belief? Is it motivation? The definition...
Pat Buchanan: Are we on the ramp to Impeachment Road?
After a stroke felled Woodrow Wilson during his national tour to save his League of Nations, an old rival, Sen. Albert Fall, went to the White House to tell the president, “I have been praying for you, Sir.” To which Wilson is said to have replied, “Which way, Senator?” Historians...
Paul Waldman: Mike Pence predicts war everywhere in the next few yearsVideo
Vice President Mike Pence spoke to the West Point graduating class on Saturday, and amid the standard congratulations and tributes to the graduates, he said something truly shocking: “It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will...
Elizabeth Cobbs: Harriet Tubman, America’s foremost female patriot, belongs on the $20 bill now
Harriet Tubman won an internet vote in 2015 to decide which American woman should appear on the nation’s currency by 2020. As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump denounced the choice as “political correctness.” Now, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has canceled the plan’s implementation, at least until President Trump leaves office....
Jonah Goldberg: Abortion debate leaves no room between extremes
“Democrats are aggressively pushing late-term abortion, allowing children to be ripped from their mother’s womb right up until the moment of birth,” President Trump said at a Florida rally earlier this month. “The baby is born and you wrap the baby beautifully and you talk to the mother about the...
Ted Kopas: We need to care for our caregivers
There is a looming crisis in Pennsylvania. Who will care for our aged family members and loved ones? It’s difficult to find a family who does not have older members in need of some long-term services and supports (LTSS). Pennsylvania’s changing demographics pose significant challenges, as approximately 70 percent of...
Mitchel Nickols: Proper management true measure of school success
The school year is drawing to an end for most students, but school districts’ work continues throughout the year. As they prepare to submit final budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, districts focus on critical needs for educating youth effectively and efficiently. Discussion topics include teacher salaries and benefits, which...
Sandip Shah: Baby boomers should be wary of Medicare changes
Baby boomers are aging rapidly. Around 10,000 Americans celebrate their 65th birthday every day. Unfortunately for these seniors, the government health care to which they’re entitled may put their lives at risk. That’s thanks to a new proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services that would impose price...
John Stossel: In money we trust?
Look at the dollar bills in your wallet. They say they are “legal tender for all debts.” But are they? What makes them valuable? What makes them worth anything? Each bill says, “In God We Trust.” But God won’t guarantee their value. The $20 bill depicts the White House. Congress...
Walter Williams: Socialism’s utopia is unattainable
Presidential contenders are in a battle to out-give one another. Sen. Elizabeth Warren proposes a whopping $50,000 per student college loan forgiveness. Sen. Bernie Sanders proposes free health care for all Americans plus illegal aliens. Most Democratic presidential candidates promise free stuff that includes free college, universal income, “Medicare for...
Nicolas Loris: What drives gas prices up — and how we can steer them down
As Memorial Day kicks off the summer season, hotdogs, cold beers and pool openings aren’t the only things on the minds of Americans. AAA expects a record 37.6 million Americans to hit the road and drive more than 50 miles for the long weekend, which means gas prices are also...
Ed Gainey: UPMC exploiting memory of Martin Luther King Jr.
On the evening before he was assassinated in Memphis, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” address to the city’s black community. King foresaw his own death and spoke about the need for others in the movement to carry on. “Like anybody, I...
Pat Buchanan: Who wants this war with Iran?
Speaking on state TV of the prospect of a war in the Gulf, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, seemed to dismiss the idea. “There won’t be any war. … We don’t seek a war, and (the Americans) don’t either. They know it’s not in their interests.” The ayatollah’s analysis —...
Robert B. Reich: The Trump economy isn’t good for everyone
The award for this year’s Biggest Backhanded Compliment to Donald Trump from a Trump Toadie goes to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who recently predicted a Trump victory in 2020 because “people will vote for somebody they don’t like if they think it’s good for them.” Mulvaney...
Timothy L. O’Brien: Wouldn’t you like to know if Trump can be bribed?
President Donald Trump, courtesy of the Office of Government Ethics, gave the public its annual look at his business holdings on Thursday afternoon. According to Trump’s personal financial disclosure form, his boutique portfolio of golf courses, hotels, real estate and other ventures had revenue of at least $435 million in...
Ken Jennings: I’m rooting for James Holzhauer
When James Holzhauer returns to “Jeopardy!” on Monday night after a two-week hiatus, he will already be the second-longest-running contestant in the venerable quiz show’s history. During his 22-game winning streak, he has amassed almost $1.7 million, getting within spitting distance of the $2.5 million all-time cash record. All right,...
Antony Davies & James Harrigan: Peduto’s equity office more business as usual
Mayor Bill Peduto is rebranding the city’s Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment. It will henceforth be known as the Office of Equity, and will be headed by a chief equity officer. This sounds all well and good, but raises a number of questions, not the least of which is what kinds...
G. Terry Madonna & Michael Young: Choices overwhelming for Pennsylvania voters
Government in Pennsylvania can seem underwhelming sometimes: The lack of a responsive Legislature comes to mind, as does a baffling irrational and inefficient tax system, an indifferently maintained highway system, and a structural framework better fitted to the 19th century than the 21st. But there is one arena where the...
David Hickton: Don’t nickel & dime Pennsylvania’s democracy
The front lines of today’s cyberwarfare battles are not just at Fort Meade. They are in Allegheny County’s Elections Division. And in Erie County. And Butler County. And Indiana County. And all across Pennsylvania. Our elections — and the integrity of your vote — are under threat from nation-state adversaries....
Walter Williams: Fixing higher education in America
Richard Vedder’s new book, “Restoring the Promise,” published by the Independent Institute based in Oakland, Calif., is about the crisis in higher education. Vedder, distinguished professor emeritus of economics at Ohio University, summarizes the three major problems faced by America’s colleges and universities. First, our universities “are vastly too expensive,...
John Stossel: Sex ‘trafficking’ panic
When police charged New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft with soliciting prostitution, the press said the police rescued sex slaves. “They were women who were from China, who were forced into sex slavery,” said Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show.” We’re told this happens all the time. “Human trafficking is...
Donald Boudreaux: What if real wars were fought like trade wars?
Uncle Sam and Beijing are now waging a full-blown trade war against each other. But trade wars are very different than real wars — you know, the violent struggles in which belligerents on one side try to kill and maim belligerents on the other side, and often also to seize...
S.E. Cupp: Trump’s escalation of Obama’s shadow war
If I gave you a pop quiz on recent current events, I bet you’d do pretty well, thanks to a 24-hour cable news cycle, late night talk shows, social media and popular culture. You undoubtedly know that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had their first child. You can likely go...
Colin McNickle: Reversing Greater Pittsburgh’s population decline
As the population continues to decline in Greater Pittsburgh’s seven-county region, sound public policies that could help to remedy the losses go unimplemented, remind scholars at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. Based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimates as of July 1, 2018, the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)...
