Featured Commentary category, Page 96

Covid-19 has shown us that our health and well-being are connected. Our own health depends on the health of the person next to us, and the person next to that person. No matter what we look like, where we live or what’s in our wallets, getting sick reminds us that...

Over 51 million Americans have filed for unemployment since covid-19 struck. But for the most part, they haven’t lost their health insurance. An astounding 98% of workers who had employer-sponsored health benefits before the pandemic are still enrolled in workplace plans, according to a July report. That encouraging statistic ought...

Amid the covid-19 pandemic, a potential solution to an existing epidemic has slipped under the radar — but it cannot be ignored. The White House recently formed a new task force and announced The President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS). The PREVENTS task...

The covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the economic and environmental inequities that plague Pittsburgh, and a strong public transit system will be necessary to get those impacted back to work and jump-start the economy when conditions are safe. With the Trump administration’s response to covid-19 a complete disaster — characterized by...

The CORPS Act, a bipartisan proposal currently in the Senate, expands national service by attracting volunteers to help needy citizens during the pandemic. Within a capitalist framework, service isn’t emphasized, except within religious communities. This attitude must change, and it bears directly on race relations. Since the George Floyd killing,...

In a surprising development, the co-authors of this article have become friends. Surprising because Jonathan’s organization, Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP), decided last year to decline further funding from Colcom Foundation, John’s employer and a major funder. The decision was made over concerns about Colcom-funded groups that seek reduced...

Maybe it’s all Senator Lindsey Graham’s fault. “It was Lindsey Graham who helped convince Donald Trump to talk to Bob Woodward,” Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson told his TV audience Wednesday night. “Lindsey Graham brokered that meeting. Lindsey Graham even sat in on the first interview between Bob Woodward and...

Global emergencies cause a series of dilemmas. Consider the covid-19 pandemic. First, many lives have already been lost to covid-19, and many more lives will be lost in the near future. Second, we can drastically reduce the death toll by sacrificing other things that we care about. For example, should...

Labor Day 2020, like no other in our nation’s history, is absent of parades and large gatherings. Canceled due to covid-19, celebrations are replaced with Zoom meetings that commemorate the American worker as we all hope better days are ahead. Traditionally on Labor Day union leaders boast of accomplishments of...

As assistant secretary for mine safety and health, I know firsthand how miners across the country — more than 300,000 individuals — provide an essential service to our country. Miners work to extract, process and deliver the minerals, metal and coal that keep America working. President Trump has been a...

Labor Day 2020 certainly is a far cry from this day one year ago. While much has changed, we want to focus on the positive, and the great opportunity now at hand. Perhaps more than any Labor Day ever, we should all have a far greater appreciation for our region’s...

In Pennsylvania, covid-19 continues to ravage communities, with the number of cases now exceeding 142,000 and climbing. For people struggling with chronic liver disease, this is devastating news. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Americans with liver disease, including hepatitis B and hepatitis C, could be at an increased...

So, let’s talk about Nancy Pelosi’s hair. Or, more specifically, the wash and blowout that the Democratic House Speaker from San Francisco got at a salon there that was shuttered by pandemic rules but somehow managed to open for her — and just her. Of all the rules surrounding the...

While Americans focus on the coronavirus pandemic, the ongoing economic crisis and now the presidential campaign, top Republicans in Washington are continuing to attack one of the constitutional pillars of American democracy: our free press. America’s founders knew freedom of the press was so important that they enshrined it in...

The coronavirus pandemic has affected our daily lives in unanticipated ways, and our path to recovery won’t be short. Shortly after Gov. Tom Wolf announced he didn’t have the ability to extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order to halt the pending...

The shock of seeing so many Black people killed this summer in brutal police actions has seared the conscience of the nation. The memory of the 2015 murder of nine African Americans at a Bible study in Charleston, S.C., by an unrepentant white supremacist needs to weigh on America as...

The results are in from the 2020 primary season, and reports of over 530,000 uncounted mail ballots and silenced voters dominate the headlines. Yet the push for expanding mail-in voting in November continues apace. Pennsylvania is unfortunately no exception. In the state House, Rep. Ed Gainey, D-Lincoln-Lemington, introduced House Bill...

This editorial was published in the Kenosha (Wis.) News on Aug. 29. Kenosha didn’t deserve what happened last week. No American city deserves it. Days of civil unrest. Fire after fire burning in the Uptown that claimed far too many buildings. A Wild West shootout downtown with armed militia. A...

At the Republican National Convention last week, one could be forgiven for being confused about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. On the one hand, his endorsers praised his smashing of the Islamic State’s caliphate and killing of Iran’s terror mastermind. On the other, speakers also touted Trump’s commitment to reduce...

Without any input or authorization from elected Pennsylvania House and Senate members, Gov. Tom Wolf effectively shut down the Pennsylvania economy. His unilateral, one-size-fits-all lockdown decree has forced Pennsylvanians to suffer exponentially worse than citizens of other states that have adhered to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) protocols. As a...

When is it acceptable for people engaged in “public trust” to place loyalty to each other over loyalty to those they serve? The correct answer is never, because it breeds corruption and undermines trust. The fact is clear: No matter the endeavor of public trust ventured, all realize that, because...

In May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law known as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), thereby allowing states to pass laws that legalize and regulate sports betting within their borders. Since that time, nearly half of the states across the country have legalized...

Title 39, Section 101 of the U.S. Code: “The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in...

An emergency is no time to trifle with bureaucratic red tape. At the outset of the covid-19 crisis, many feared a surge of patients would overwhelm hospital capacity. Health officials sounded the alarm and identified policy changes that would enable them to meet the coronavirus challenge. And in many cases,...

Steve Bannon’s arrest on fraud charges is hardly a tragedy in the traditional sense of the word. Sure, the fall of a hero is the hallmark of tragedy, and Bannon considers himself an American hero — a self-perception that comes through very clearly in Errol Morris’s brilliant and edgy interview...