Opinion category, Page 401
Gary Franks: Democrat-controlled Congress should do more to help Biden on Ukraine
More than 70% of the country feels we are going in the wrong direction. If Americans did not need another reason to change direction, at least at the congressional level, the massacre at Bucha and horrors seen in Ukraine cry out for change. Where is the Democrat-controlled Congress? It is...
Joseph Wright and Abel Escribà-Folch: Calling Putin a ‘war criminal’ could spark even more atrocities in Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine continues, officials in the U.S. and Europe are sounding alarms about alleged war crimes being committed by Russian troops there. President Joe Biden has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” as has the U.S. Senate, on the grounds that schools, hospitals and civilian...
Tyrone McKinley Freeman: How MacKenzie Scott’s $12 billion in gifts to charity reflect an uncommon trust in the groups she supports
Editor’s note: MacKenzie Scott disclosed on March 23 that she had given $3.9 billion to 465 nonprofits in the previous nine months. These no-strings-attached donations bring the total she has given away in the past two years to at least $12 billion. Philanthropy historian Tyrone Freeman weighs in on Scott’s...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Call it a stealth coup
What if the coup already came and nobody noticed? It sounds nonsensical, yes. How does a coup go unnoticed? The conventional wisdom, as we learn more about the election of 2020 and the insurrection of 2021, is that by the machinations of Ginni Thomas, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump and others,...
Letter to the editor: Biden worst president ever
Jimmy Carter can sleep well at night knowing that he’s no longer known as the worst president in American history. Joe Biden claimed that title after only 14 months in office. Biden accomplished this by giving us record high inflation, record high gas prices, record high illegal immigration, record high...
Letter to the editor: GOP looking more like Communist Party
Maybe President Biden could be more successful if he mobilized an angry mob and sent them down to Washington to smash their way into the Capitol, erect a gallows and then chase down the disagreeable legislators. But if he did that, he wouldn’t be Democrat, he’d be a Republican. And...
Letter to the editor: A plan to track immigrants, politicians
President Biden’s gang is releasing illegal aliens into our country by the bus loads. They have reasoned that it is better to give them a government cellphone paid for by us than to put ankle bracelets on them. I have a better, cheaper method. I would insert a chip into...
Lori Falce: Why are we reluctant to tax billionaires?
Who wants to be a billionaire? It’s an aspirational number that most people can’t truly fathom. Oh, they’d like to, but it’s hard to truly appreciate. The median household income in Pennsylvania is around $50,000. If you were able to hold on to every penny — spending nothing on food...
Letter to the editor: County’s mental health needs
The American Rescue Plan allocated $105 million to Westmoreland County. Commissioners Gina Cerilli Thrasher and Sean Kertes, please join with Commissioner Doug Chew and realize the acute need for better mental health care in the county and make funding mental health care a priority. In 1990, I moved to Westmoreland...
Letter to the editor: Time to increase Social Security thresholds
Congressional Gaming Caucus co-chair Guy Reschenthaler recently introduced the Shifting Limits on Thresholds (SLOT) Act, which would raise the tax threshold for slot winnings from $1,200 to $5,000. The current threshold for reporting slot winnings was set in 1977. While this is commendable, it doesn’t adequately address what constituents really...
Laurels & lances: Support and punishment
Laurel: To shining a spotlight. For years, Steven Matto, 54, of Arnold, has taken people into the heart of area emergencies as the official photographer for many fire companies, particularly in the Alle-Kiski Valley. The pictures sometimes gather the attention they merit in print or in broadcast. They always document...
Shelley Inglis: Putin puts international justice on trial — betting that the age of impunity will continue
Images of pregnant women fleeing a bombed maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, raised again the question of how far the Russian military will be willing to go to conquer the country — and whether war crimes are being committed. In just over two weeks of the invasion, the World Health...
Kelly Flanigan: Pa. communities should be allowed to choose clean energy
If we’re going to make headway in the fight against climate change, we must reduce the carbon footprint of our homes and buildings. That’s because buildings account for about 40% of all energy use in the United States. And about 80% of that energy comes from dirty power sources that...
Letter to the editor: Let Ukraine, Russia duke it out
The war in Ukraine will not end well. There’s a lot of self interest among world leaders. Ukrainians cannot win the war without assistance. NATO is involved. Russia may come after European NATO members before they come after us. Joe and Hunter Biden may be subject to Ukrainian blackmail because...
Letter to the editor: Biden a better car salesman than president
Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address that if you buy an electric vehicle (EV), you can save $80 in gasoline every month. Imagine that. In August, the White House held an EV summit, inviting executives from GM, Ford and Chrysler but none from the world’s largest...
Editorial: A gigabyte of prevention is worth a server farm of cure
Prevention is important, whether we are talking about disease or drugs or crime. It is easier to extinguish a match than to put out a house fire. It’s the kind of thing that frequently is said and frequently ignored on a host of topics. The most obvious and timely might...
Letter to the editor: Use ARP funds to fix Westmoreland’s safety net
Ninety-eight people died June 24 when a 12-story condo in Surfside, Fla., collapsed. This tragedy occurred because warnings regarding the building’s crumbling structure were ignored. Westmoreland County commissioners have spent $7 million of American Rescue Plan funding to repair structural defects to a courthouse parking structure. These necessary repairs will...
Jonah Goldberg: Could wedge issues be the cure for polarized politics?
Conan O’Brien recently tweeted: “Well, I’ve officially lived a long life because people are excited Germany is rearming.” I had a similar feeling recently listening to the 538 politics podcast that discussed “wedge issues.” The conversation between the host, Galen Druke, and two prominent political scientists was illuminating, but the...
Victoria Elliott and Rick Seipp: Without action, Pennsylvanians could lose access to pharmacy vaccination care
Together we have sacrificed a lot to get through the covid-19 pandemic. It is understandable that many want to move on. Still, a critical job remains — acting on the emergency’s lessons once and for all so our sacrifices are not in vain. Pennsylvania legislators and Gov. Tom Wolf have...
Andrew Cuff: Progressives sacrifice Pittsburgh’s prosperity for activist politics
The Republican National Committee recently narrowed down its list of cities to host the party’s 2024 national convention to two: Milwaukee and Nashville. But the original list from earlier this year included Pittsburgh. What scared the GOP off the Steel City? Considering its outsize role in U.S. politics, Pittsburgh would...
Letter to the editor: We’re all responsible for keeping our rights safe
Let the sunshine in! That is, let the Sunshine Act intent in our school board and local council public meetings. Everybody needs to know that you have a right to know and an obligation to care about what is right, just, equitable, ethical and fair. More than ever before, there...
Letter to the editor: Money for education not making kids smarter
We have a governor who I believe feels by throwing money at teaching our children, they will become smarter. Or is it because teachers unions give millions of dollars to his party? We spend more per student than any other country in the world. But our students keep falling further...
Editorial: Debates need all candidates to participate
There is a point to primary debates. It’s hard to imagine after the sideshows of the 2016 Republican presidential primary and, not to be outdone, the equally circus-like 2020 Democratic presidential primary. But it’s true. The point of a general election primary is for all of the voters to decide...
Letter to the editor: What about treatment of Brett Kavanaugh?
Letter-writer Robert J. Reiland thinks several Republican senators embarrassed themselves during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and that Sen. Ted Cruz made racist attacks on the nominee (“Republicans’ questioning of Jackson embarrassing.” Asking difficult questions, as Cruz did, is not an attack and does not make one a...
Letter to the editor: Educating students about artificial intelligence
While the editorial “Artificial intelligence is not educational taboo” (March 8, TribLIVE) implied otherwise, I am not, in fact, afraid to talk about artificial intelligence and how this topic might fit into schools. AI is not only about Alexa and Siri; it also is used in facial recognition technology, Deepfakes,...
