Opinion category, Page 176
Letter to the editor: Criticizing Trump doesn’t equate to support of Biden
I am compelled to respond to those letter-writers who think criticism of Donald Trump automatically means the person criticizing must love and support President Biden. How nice to be able to see the world is such black and white terms! No need for any critical thinking. This lack of critical...
Raymond Offenheiser: Here’s what’s going wrong with Gaza relief
Amid persistent calls from the United States and other countries that Israel needs to make it easier for life-saving aid to reach Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military closed two of the region’s few operating border crossings in Rafah, a southern Gazan city, on May 7. Responding to...
Trudy Rubin: The biggest story last week was not Stormy Daniels or campus protests
While TV news was glued last week to Stormy Daniels’ tell-all testimony and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, scant attention was paid to Vladimir Putin’s tsar-like coronation for a fifth term. Nor to his bellicose parade of Russia’s nuclear-capable missiles through Red Square last Thursday, the annual Victory Day commemoration of World War...
Letter to the editor: Dangerous times
Regarding the letter “Conservative talking points don’t ring true” (May 9, TribLive): Famous scientist Carl Sagan once said, and I quote, “You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe.” Facts don’t seem to matter...
Letter to the editor: Lawmakers should be keeping us safe
It is difficult to understand how women and mothers can be against safeguarding our families. Two of our legislators, who happen to be women, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward and Senate Judiciary Chair Lisa Baker, are obstructing sensible gun-safety legislation. Protecting its citizens is the first responsibility of government....
Editorial: Does quadriplegic inmate deserve compassionate release after 49 years?
Ezra Bozeman was convicted of second-degree murder in 1975. The jury came to that decision 10 months after the crime occurred, when Morris Weitz was shot and killed during a robbery at a dry cleaner’s shop in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood. Bozeman was sentenced to life in prison. He has...
Letter to the editor: Veteran won’t vote for Biden
The writer of the letter “Veteran stands for democracy, not Trump” (May 7, TribLive) stated that as a veteran, he pledged to defend our freedoms. I say, amen. Also as a veteran, I find it very difficult to stay silent when I see freedoms, values and individual responsibilities being regularly...
Jonah Goldberg: Biden’s problem goes beyond inflation, Gaza and age
A batch of new polls from The New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer has very bad news for President Biden: He’s losing. Among registered voters, he’s significantly behind in five of the six battleground states that are most likely to decide the election. He does slightly better...
Doyle McManus: A lesson from Presidents Biden and Trump — the new normal is nonstop crises
A poll published by the Economist this month included a finding that was striking yet unsurprising: Almost 7 in 10 Americans believe things in the country have spun out of control. That’s a problem for President Joe Biden, who campaigned in 2020 offering a return to normalcy after four years...
Juana Saunders: Transparency would help restore confidence in our judiciary
The last time I saw my 26-year-old son, Gerald Thomas, was in Allegheny Court of Common Pleas Judge Anthony Mariani’s courtroom. The judge profiled and belittled him in open court, and needlessly extended his pretrial incarceration. My son died in jail shortly after. When I learned about the Judicial Conduct...
Joe Guzzardi: VP sweepstakes coming into final stretch
Former President Donald J. Trump may be tied up in a Manhattan courtroom, but he’s active online. One of his fundraising efforts asks supporters to help him choose his vice president. In a mass email, Trump asked, “Which person would you select as your next vice president? Type in the...
Letter to the editor: Grateful for kind gesture at Macy’s
A few days ago I went to Macy’s to return some things. I didn’t have my Macy’s card with me. A lady said, “Here, use mine,” and inserted her card. Between the things I was returning and the things I was purchasing, there was 66 cents difference, and she paid...
Letter to the editor: Trump will get fair trials
In the letter “Trump charges sign of election tampering” (May 7, TribLive), we find the question, “How can we possibly perceive the roughly 90 felony charges leveled against the Republican candidate by multiple Democratic prosecutors in multiple Democratic-led cities as anything other than blatant election tampering?” The defendant in these...
Editorial: What can Pennsylvania do about truancy?
Schools can be caught in a no-win situation when it comes to getting kids in the doors. Students are required to attend school until they turn 18 or graduate. It might be a public or private or charter school, but they have to be learning to read and write and...
Letter to the editor: Trump haters, wake up
Are Democratic voters just incredibly naive? Or maybe they just don’t care when the lies are about the “other guys.” So, if Donald Trump is targeted, anything goes. By now it should be obvious to the least savvy of voters that leftist prosecutors have targeted Trump and constructed the crimes....
Jared Bahir Browsh: Sports gambling creates a windfall, but raises questions of integrity
Sports betting is having a big moment across the United States. While gambling on sports has been legal for decades in countries such as the U.K., it wasn’t until 2018 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could legalize sports betting. Before then, sports betting had been permitted only...
Danny Tyree: Is ‘value’ a dirty word?
As I sit here admiring my 88-cent container of mustard, I can’t help feeling self-conscious. I know that restaurants advertise their “value menus” and retailers offer no-frills knockoffs of their glitziest products, but I keep picturing the corporate CEOs loathing such concessions as a necessary evil to appease the (ugh!)...
Letter to the editor: What Trump gave us
Regarding the letter “Trump will let us shine again” (April 28, TribLive): When President Trump took office, the economy was in the 91st month of expansion since the great recession, caused by policies of the Obama administration in which Trump had no hand. If the letter-writer thinks that Trump’s policies,...
Letter to the editor: Supporting Israel is supporting terror
WARNING: The following letter will be disturbing to the sayanim (look it up) and all the media-brainwashed people who consider any criticism of Israel to be antisemitism: I contacted Sen. Bob Casey at his website and asked his position on the Israel/Gaza situation. I received a lengthy one-sided screed condemning...
Letter to the editor: Pharmacy benefit restrictions will hamper Pittsburgh’s economic development
Four years since the onset of covid-19, the aftershocks of the pandemic continue to ripple across Pittsburgh. Commercial office vacancies and falling city tax revenues present fresh challenges that we must work collaboratively to overcome. Despite these hurdles, downtown Pittsburgh is making strides to recover. Over the last couple years,...
Editorial: Cyril Wecht changed forensics and true crime
There is no denying that Cyril Wecht was a leading figure in his field. The forensic pathologist’s career was about death and the puzzles that surround it. He reviewed evidence in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and consulted on the investigation of Robert F. Kennedy’s shooting death. He weighed...
Dave Anderson: Discard the principle vs. compromise distinction
One of the most basic conflicts in politics, and in life in general, is whether to stand by your principles or be open to compromise. Woodrow Wilson is known as a president who stood by his principles regarding America’s need to join the League of Nations, an organization he proposed...
Seth Greenland: Have we learned nothing? The protester’s taunt, ‘Go back to Poland,’ is grotesque
When it was reported that a demonstrator near Columbia University had loudly suggested Jews should go back to Poland, I was already there. My wife, son and daughter and I were visiting Holocaust sites in Eastern Europe. My father’s family is from Poland and Ukraine, and many of our relatives...
Letter to the editor: Biden supports women
In March 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law the bipartisan Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2022 (VAWA 2022), which was the fifth iteration of VAWA since he championed its original passage in 1994 as a senator. He had been pressing for its passage since 1990 but had been...
Editorial: Applying to college shouldn’t be so complicated
Although college isn’t for everyone, earning a degree still offers a pathway to success for many Americans. Yet, each year, hundreds of thousands of low-income, college-ready students never actually enroll, partly because the application process prioritizes administrative busywork over academics. Policymakers should work to make it simpler. Applying to college...
