Featured Commentary category, Page 76
Peter Morici: Sunak’s ideas won’t fix what’s broken in Britain. Here’s what will work.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is looking to cut spending and raise taxes to appease financial markets, but that won’t give Britons a renewed path to growth and prosperity. From 2010 to 2016, David Cameron led the U.K. out of the global financial crisis with taxes at a fairly stable...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: TSA faces ethical limits in use of AI, but improvements must persist
Artificial intelligence has become a disruptive force in society. Terms such as machine learning, deep learning and neural networks have become commonplace among mainstream media, elicit ing visions of innovation that has the potential to change our lives. At its core, AI attempts to mimic the capabilities of the human...
Jennifer Bertetto: Why Trib Total Media is nixing negative political ads
A letter to readers from Jennifer Bertetto, president and CEO of Trib Total Media • Like you, we’re sick and tired of political attack ads. So, we’re getting rid of them. All Trib Total Media publications now have a new policy for political advertisements: They can be about the candidate,...
Jillian Peterson and James Densley: Rampage at Va. Walmart follows upward trend in supermarket gun attacks
A gun rampage at a Walmart in Virginia is the latest amid a rise in mass shootings in general in the U.S., and mass shootings at grocery and retail stores in particular. Multiple people including the gunman were killed in the incident Nov. 22 at a Walmart in Chesapeake. It...
Jeannine Bell: Suspect in the Colo. LGBTQ shootings faces hate crimes charges — what exactly are they?
The 22-year-old suspected shooter at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colo., who allegedly killed five and injured dozens faces five counts of murder and hate crimes charges. Hate crimes are known as “bias-motivated” crimes in Colorado. The charges against the shooter are still preliminary, although Colorado Springs Mayor John...
John Hinshaw: Will Pa. GOP change course? Probably not.
This was not the midterm election Pennsylvania Republicans were expecting. The New York Times reveals that voters in the Keystone State trended leftward, while across the border in New York, the opposite was true, despite the reelection of a Democratic governor. As it stands, the state GOP is trying to...
Cal Thomas: Thanksgiving to whom?
Merriam-Webster has announced it is adding about 500 new words to its seventh edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. I doubt most people will ever use them in conversation or in writing, but they will be beneficial when playing the board game. Meanwhile, the corruption of the English language...
Andrew Chew: Outdated property tax assessments result in unfair tax burdens
One of the most significant sources of revenue for public schools and local governments in Pennsylvania is property taxes. As homeowners across the commonwealth know, property tax bills greatly affect the budgets of many households, from middle-class families to single parents to older adults on fixed incomes. Despite the huge...
Greg Fulton: Count your blessings and pray for Ukraine this Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a time for us to be thankful for the gifts bestowed upon us. We may be worried about making it to Grandma’s house on time for Thanksgiving dinner or ensuring that the turkey is cooked perfectly, but these concerns are trivial compared to those faced by others in...
Kyle Sammin: One cheer for Josh Shapiro
If you believe President Joe Biden, democracy itself was at stake in the midterm elections earlier this month. This theme was more than just a new variation on the “most important election of our lifetimes” line that politicians trot out every two years. It was a cynical attempt to distract...
Dr. Andrew Smolar: Teaching kids to cope in social media world
I was a student for 32 years. That time was spent in classrooms, labs, hospitals and quiet offices. Countless hours spent learning the language of medicine and the mysteries of the mind. Such was the pathway for a psychiatrist who became a psychoanalyst. But I wasn’t introduced to psychology until...
Aaron Chapin: PSERS has delivered for school retirees — and Pa.’s economy
In a job interview, a good human resources manager will ask about your professional experience — all of it, not just the past six months to a year. When considering contractors to fix your roof, you’re going to look at how well customers rate them — not just now but...
Elizabeth Stelle: Remove barriers to increase health care access in Western Pa.
Nearly three years after the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, hospitals still struggle with significant labor shortages. Health care workers are facing long hours and massive burnout. Earlier this year, as many as 93% of surveyed Pittsburgh hospital workers were considering leaving the profession. Pennsylvania’s aging population has upped the...
Ayalla A. Ruvio and Forrest Morgeson: Retailers may see more red after Black Friday as consumers act as if US already in recession
Retailers are gearing up for another blockbuster holiday shopping season, but consumers burned by the highest inflation in a generation may have other ideas. Industry groups are predicting another record year of retail sales, with the National Retail Federation forecasting a jump of 6% to 8% over the $890 billion...
Sen. Wayne D. Fontana: Mail-in voting is the future
In the 2022 general election, more than 5.3 million Pennsylvanians voted. More than 1.4 million of them voted by mail. More people voted in this midterm election in Pennsylvania than in any other midterm ever before, and it’s safe to say that mail-in voting is a big reason why. In...
Matthew J. Brouillette: Time to move on from the Trump-inflicted wound
It was supposed to be a Republican red wave. Instead, it turned into a riptide that swept away the GOP’s hopes of reversing harmful Democratic policies. Across the country, red seats flipped blue, tight races broke away from midterm norms and toward the president’s party, and Donald Trump-backed candidates turned...
POINT: Support free speech? You should be rooting for Musk’s Twitter transformation to succeed
Everyone seems to have an opinion on whether an Elon Musk-led Twitter is good for free speech, and much of that debate is happening on Twitter. On the surface, this fact goes a long way to prove the point. While many people don’t like to engage with critics of their...
COUNTERPOINT: Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase harms democracy
Social media has gotten a bad name in recent years, much of it deserved, as it has played a sizable role in spreading right-wing backwardness and even authoritarianism in much of the world. This includes, most prominently, the reach and especially staying power of the world’s most powerful politician in...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: Supreme Court ruling on face masks is irrelevant
The Supreme Court ruling that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can require masks on airplanes, trains and buses will be welcomed by some and scorned by others. Will the Biden administration act on this ruling and reinstate transportation mask mandates, given the current surge in covid-19, influenza and RSV infections...
Cal Thomas: Mike Pence, a man of integrity
If former Vice President Mike Pence is ever in need of a character witness, he could not do much better than one statement former President Donald Trump made to him. In his new book “So Help Me God,” Pence quotes Trump as pressuring him to overturn the results of the...
Dr. Asif Ilyas: Opioid settlements, prosecutions are heartening, but education still necessary
A $26 billion settlement with opioid manufacturers in March. A $13.8 billion settlement with pharmacies in November. And jail time for prescribers across Pennsylvania and the nation over the past few years. These settlements with the manufacturers and purveyors of narcotics and the prosecution of “pill mill” doctors are heartening....
Charles McElwee: Midterms reveal trouble for GOP in Pa.’s suburbs
This past week, Pennsylvania voters once again defied prognostications, rejected the status quo, and exhibited how demography has realigned the state’s politics. An unpopular Democratic president (born and initially raised in the region that delivered Donald Trump’s 2016 statewide victory), surging voter registration numbers for Republicans and economic disaffection failed...
Albert Eisenberg: Mastriano a case study in not building a coalition
It was shortly after viewing the clip of the wife of Doug Mastriano — Pennsylvania’s ill-fated Republican nominee for governor — jumping in front of a press conference microphone to tell reporters that they “probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do” that I thought to myself: Are...
Cal Thomas: Toxic Trump must leave the stage
“I don’t believe in living in the past. Living in the past is for cowards. If you live in the past, you die in the past.” — Football legend Mike Ditka “The future is now.” — Football legend George Allen Former president Donald Trump appears ready and eager to announce...
Evan W. Wolfson: Social Security benefits and long covid
The article “People with long covid face barriers to government disability benefits” (Nov. 10, TribLIVE) suggests it is difficult to obtain Social Security benefits on the basis of disability. This is certainly true, as a majority of applicants are denied at the initial determination level. What is misleading is that...
