Featured Commentary category, Page 95

Across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the crisp fall air announces the season for football and elections. More and more, voting is taking on the character of a hard-fought football rivalry. It used to be that political battles were fought over principles and policies and government programs. But the Republican Party...

The following was written by the Allegheny County House Democratic delegation listed below. Pennsylvania will be a key battleground state in this election, and we all can agree: Every citizen 18 years of age or older has the right to vote safely (in person or by mail) and should vote,...

When Tenaris idled its Beaver County pipe-making plant and laid me off this spring, I walked out the door with a lifeline — six months of employer-paid health insurance that enabled me to keep providing for my family. The owners of Tenaris didn’t provide this crucial health care coverage to...

Never in the history of the modern world has there been such a desperate need for the pharmaceutical industry to be able to save our world and return all of us to a form of normality. Covid-19 is impacting everyone, including the leader of the free world and his family....

Anticipation of a covid-19 vaccine is growing. The National Academy of Medicine issued the report “Framework for Equitable Allocation of Covid-19 Vaccine,” offering guidance on vaccine allocation. The process is certain to be fraught with politics, given that equitable, safe and effective all represent critical, albeit subjective criteria to assess...

When the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, front-line workers risked their lives to protect our communities. Pennsylvania’s nurses, doctors and other health care professionals rose to the challenge to help their patients battle the virus. They deserve our utmost respect and appreciation for their service. We sometimes forget that...

America is divided. We see and feel it every day, and one can become discouraged. Then, when we recently marked the 19th remembrance of 9/11, something happened: Americans from all across the nation put politics aside and honored the brave people we lost. We were reminded of an earlier time...

Newspapers in Pennsylvania have a long history of providing timely, accurate and informative news to the citizens of the commonwealth. We deliver the stories that matter most to residents of local communities; stories that often cannot be found elsewhere. Despite the challenges and uncertainties that have largely defined 2020, one...

An artist from Pittsburgh created the famous image of Rosie the Riveter back in the 1940s. During World War II, Rosie inspired countless women to do their part to help the war effort by working in manufacturing, building the munitions and supplies our troops needed for victory. With the spread...

Presidential elections too often focus on polarizing issues that divide us rather than areas of common ground that bring us together. No matter one’s political views, a thriving economy, sustained job growth with family-supporting wages and benefits, a healthy environment, and our nation’s security will always enjoy broad bipartisan support....

Having advanced the cause of Middle East peace by brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, President Trump must now turn his attention to the Middle West to advance the cause of his reelection. For in America’s heartland lies Ohio, the nation’s preeminent presidential prognosticator....

In a July 24 press conference, Gov. Tom Wolf spoke about the rise of enrollment in cyber charter schools due to the covid-19 pandemic. He stated that despite his uncertainty on the “pedagogy” behind online learning, school districts need to ensure that children are able to learn safely and recognized...

When statistics fly in the face of what we see around us, we usually don’t reject the statistics. We just assume we see only a tiny part of a bigger picture and that, in the bigger picture, the statistics are probably true even if they don’t jive with our reality....

Like many other liberals, I’m devastated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, which opened the way for President Donald Trump to nominate a third Supreme Court justice in his first term. And I’m revolted by the hypocrisy of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s willingness to confirm Trump’s nominee after refusing...

Last week, President Trump held a campaign rally at Pittsburgh International Airport. Had he ventured past the airport, he would have met Pittsburghers who have lost jobs, health care and the dignity that comes from a hard day’s work. He likely would have looked in the eyes of people who...

Each Pennsylvanian has a constitutional right to breathe clean air, even if that right isn’t always protected by our local and state leaders. Locally, communities in the Mon Valley and across Allegheny County have suffered far too much, for far too long, from air pollution with little and inadequate response...

As Pennsylvanians contend with ongoing devastation wrought by coronavirus, and simultaneously reckon with systemic inequality as police violence toward Black people continues across the country, the failures of our criminal justice system have been laid bare. We imprison too many people for too long — a disproportionate number of whom...

No matter what we look like, where we live or how much we make, the public health and economic crisis we’re in reminds us that we’re all just human. For years, people like me — young people, people of color, working-class people of all races — have been left behind...

Gentle rain and a cool breeze encourage tomatoes to grow and grass to be lush and green here in Pittsburgh. It is hard to imagine that our friends, relatives and fellow Americans in California, Washington and Oregon are waking up to apocalyptic, orange skies, air so smoky that air quality...

Imagine a world in which millions of American energy and manufacturing jobs were sent overseas, all to help countries like Communist China prosper. Well, you don’t have to imagine that, you lived it. That was the grim reality Pennsylvanians faced before President Trump took office. Between 2000 and 2017, under...

It’s easy to rattle off all the promises that President Donald Trump has made to Western Pennsylvania. He promised to bring back manufacturing jobs. He promised to stand up to China and be tough on trade. He promised to stand up to a corrupt political system and fight for the...

Even before Attorney General William Barr’s reported suggestion that protesters be prosecuted for sedition, and that the mayor of Seattle could be targeted with a criminal investigation, the AG was up to his usual stunts. His repeated comments on ballots and voting demonstrate his distinctive way of distorting the truth....

The Founding Fathers were keenly aware of the need for accountability throughout government. One problem they did not foresee was the influence of special-interest money in electing public officials or in determining policy outcomes. Political corruption is not new. To stem it, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was established in...

Should he stay or should he go? That’s the question that is fueling a bitter division in Pittsburgh. The divide is not over the coming presidential election. It is about the fate of the statue of Christopher Columbus in Oakland. Pittsburgh’s Italian immigrants first proposed the idea for the statue...

At public input hearings for the ongoing rate case in front of the Pennsylvania Utility Commission (PUC) early in July, members of the community raised concerns about the proposed rate increase at Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA). If approved by the PUC, this would mean higher bills for PWSA...