Featured Commentary category, Page 82
Tony Hunter: President Biden, where is the action for Austin Tice?
Ten years. An American, a veteran Marine, a man who became a foreign correspondent so that his fellow Americans would know what was happening in Syria, has been missing for 10 years. President Joe Biden knows about Austin Tice. So did President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama. Some of...
Kamakshi Balasubramanian: Oakmont resident caught in Russia’s penal system
Marc Fogel taught high school history for nine years in Moscow, Russia, an experience he found fulfilling. Now, he is a prisoner in the dark, impenetrable side of that Russia, under the iron hand of its absolute authority. All of Russia has lived for centuries in the shadow of that...
Sen. Joe Pittman: You can’t have family-sustaining jobs without employers
After so many years of Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to tie real, growth-producing tax reform to anti-competitive tax tricks, legislative Republicans were able to convince him, at the end of his term, to have a straight-up conversation about making some pro-growth adjustments to our state’s tax code. Thanks to the...
Rep. Eric Nelson: Pennsylvania is Exhibit A for why election integrity matters
The recent fiasco that was the Pennsylvania Republican primary for U.S. Senate is Exhibit A on why every state needs to make election integrity a priority. It took nearly three weeks to determine the winner of the election. Imagine attending the Super Bowl and having to wait three weeks, or...
Letter to the editor: Cheney’s integrity admirable
I share letter-writer Maria Maliszewski’s concern for Liz Cheney’s future (“Liz Cheney won’t get reelected,” July 30, TribLIVE). Not that I’m her biggest fan; we couldn’t be much farther apart on the political spectrum. And if the people of Wyoming would elect a reasonable replacement, perhaps someone more centrist, I...
Cal Thomas: McCullough’s history never boring
I hated college history. The textbooks were mostly about dead white men, Abigail Adams excepted. The lectures were boring. I didn’t see how any of it related to my young life and future plans. Historian David McCullough, who died this week at age 89, helped change my attitude toward history...
Ray Nell Jones: How much would you give to save a life?
How much would you give to save a life? If only we could ask that question three years ago, June 13, 2019 — the day before Stanlee Allyn Holbrook took her own life. She was one of Pittsburgh’s many young and single mothers, all of 26 years old with three...
Aerion Abney: Despite the attacks, let’s vote — mail-in voting’s still an option in Pa.
Part of our role as legislators is to help increase access to opportunities for those we are elected to represent. Act 77 of 2019 did just that. It was a bipartisan bill that expanded access to the ballot by moving the commonwealth on a path toward normalizing no-excuse mail-in voting....
Dr. Andrew Smolar: On guns, abortion and more, why can’t 2 sides come together?
I took a glance at the two sides last week, and it didn’t look pretty. On Wednesday, I attended a township board meeting, where an owner’s right to open a gun shop in our town just west of Philadelphia was challenged. In one corner: an Orthodox Jewish owner, operating a...
Sophie Bjork-James: White nationalism is on rise, attracting violent young white men
White nationalists showed up in the hearings of the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Evidence is mounting that white nationalist groups who want to establish an all-white state played a significant role in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five dead and dozens...
Haroro J. Ingram, Andrew Mines and Daniel Milton: Where does al-Zawahri’s death leave al-Qaida and what does it say about U.S. counterterrorism?
Ayman al-Zawahri, leader of al-Qaida and a plotter of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been killed in a drone strike in the Afghan city of Kabul, according to the U.S. government. Al-Zawahri was the the successor to Osama bin Laden and his death marked “one more measure of closure” to...
Christopher Decker: Inflation is spiking around world, not just in U.S.
The 9.1% increase in U.S. consumer prices in the 12 months ending in June, the highest in four decades, has prompted many sobering headlines. Meanwhile, annual inflation in Germany and the U.K. — countries with comparable economies — ran nearly as high: 7.5% and 8.2%, respectively, for the 12 months...
Meredith Oyen: Pelosi’s Taiwan visit puts White House in delicate straits of diplomacy with China
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan Aug. 2 — a highly controversial trip that has been strongly opposed by China. Such is the sensitivity over the island’s status that even before Pelosi’s plane touched down in the capital of Taipei, mere reports of the proposed trip prompted a warning...
Alison Fisk: The value of hiring international employees
The current U.S. labor shortage has affected nearly every industry, from education to health services and child care, leaving many organizations at a loss for how to attract, hire and retain new employees. This year, there are 5.5 million more job openings available than there are candidates to fill those...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: Covid disrupted global supply chains. Can covid fix them?
Over the past two-plus years, global supply chains have been stretched beyond recognition. Yet stretched is not broken, and covid-19 may serve as the launch pad to create a new and improved global supply chain model. Global supply chains became the norm for most products when labor and materials cost...
Kim Anderson: EPA must address gas leaks that are harming our children
A few years ago, I smelled gas from my kitchen stove. When I called the gas company, they told me to get out of the house immediately and gave me a long list of things not, to do, such as turning on or off lights or dialing a phone. Any...
Elizabeth Zumpe: 5 of the biggest threats today’s K-12 students and educators face don’t involve guns
While many American students and their parents worry that the next mass shooting could happen at their school, schools are also facing a number of other threats that do not involve guns. Many of these threats are related to the mental health of educators and students. From 2018 to 2021,...
Peter Morici: Fed’s inflation promises are simply not credible
With inflation running high for the last 14 months, we can sadly conclude it’s entrenched, will be difficult to conquer and is hardly the province of the Federal Reserve alone. The present morass stems from both sides of the supply-demand scissor. Too much covid spending and the Federal Reserve printing...
Claudine Schneider: America’s oil and gas industry unpatriotic
Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, fossil fuels were a familiar sight during my childhood and since they employed some of my family, I believed these facilities represented America’s “can do” attitude. When I became a Republican member of Congress in 1981, well-paid oil and gas lobbyists were a familiar sight...
Kevin Sunday: Bipartisanship on energy, jobs a better path than reconciliation gamesmanship
In a surprising turnabout, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced last week he has struck a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a package of tax hikes and energy subsidies. Unfortunately, this proposal, which appears to be designed to game the Senate’s reconciliation process to pass spending...
Sharon Pillar: Time for Pa.’s energy freedom
The Public Utility Commission (PUC) warned customers in May that all of the state’s electric utilities intended to significantly raise their prices on June 1, ranging from 6% to 45%. The PUC said this is because “higher wholesale market prices for electricity, fueled in large part by shifts in supply...
Danielle Zanzalari: US chip makers don’t need handouts
Even during high inflation, Congress chooses to waste money by giving it to large corporations that don’t need it. Last week, semiconductor firms convinced Congress to provide free money and tax credits for expanding their U.S. manufacturing business — business expansion they already started in 2020 and 2021. The logic...
Nicholas Goldberg: Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?
Watching the Jan. 6 committee hearings, one could be forgiven for believing we’re living in the heyday of conspiracy theories, between the Holocaust denialism of the Oath Keepers, the loony pedophilia fears of the QAnoners and the “Stop the Steal” ravings of Sidney Powell, Rudolph W. Giuliani and former President...
Hayley Brown and Katie Barrows: Nonprofits need unions, too
A progressive boss is still a boss. Yet for decades, senior leadership at left-leaning organizations have been excused from providing their staff with living wages, good benefits and inclusive work environments, in part because employees themselves feared holding bosses accountable for their hypocrisy could hurt the cause. But, in recent...
D. Brian Blank: Is the U.S. in a recession? Well, that depends on whom you ask — and what measure they use
The U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate 0.9% from April through June, the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated on July 28, 2022. It follows a contraction in gross domestic product of 1.6% recorded in the first quarter of the year. Some observers suggest the two quarters of contraction constitute...
