Opinion category, Page 460
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Republicans ‘Make Bigotry Great Again’
You might think it was a crime, but last week, a grand jury did not. The reference is to the case of one Jared Lafer. He is a white man in his 20s who, in September of last year, was driving in Johnson City, Tenn., when he came upon a...
Pat Buchanan: Biden casts his lot with liberal left
“We’ve got the president of the United States on our side,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “Got 96% of the members of the Democratic caucus in the House on our side. We got all but two senators at this point in the Democratic caucus on our...
Stephanie Catarino Wissman: Punitive natural gas tax risks U.S. energy leadership, economic recovery
As Congress continues to craft a sweeping budget reconciliation bill, provisions within the package threaten to undermine American energy leadership and could potentially lead to higher costs. And few places will feel the pinch like Pennsylvania, the second-largest producer of natural gas in the country, with nearly 500,000 jobs supported...
Letter to the editor: Don’t be fooled by ‘front groups’
I’ve recently read letters and op-eds from people or groups from Philadelphia or out of state, wanting to subvert Pennsylvania laws in the name of changing the statute of limitations. To those folks, I say worry about your own backyard. A Phildadelphia group even purchased billboards in Westmoreland County (“Child...
Editorial: News you can use
Notable events, weather and sports. On social media, people are acting astounded to learn that “news” is an acronym for these four words. They might be even more shocked to realize that, like so much on Facebook or TikTok, it’s not true at all. The news, to put it bluntly,...
Letter to the editor: Speak up for courageous Marine
What are we seeing in this great country? Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, a decorated Marine officer with a sterling record of service, is being held in military jail, facing a hearing on potential charges related to disobeying orders. Why? Scheller had the audacity, the courage, to publicly call out senior...
Tom Purcell: The rise and fall of the shopping mall
My buddies Ayres and Klingler and I walked its crowded corridors for hours on Friday nights, hoping to meet girls. That’s what we did at South Hills Village Mall in the late 1970s, when we were teens and the American mall was in its heyday. Built in the mid-1960s, and...
Joseph Wingert: Newspapers make Pennsylvania communities great places to live
National Newspaper Week presents an opportunity to reflect on the value of journalism: an American treasure essential to our way of life. Around the globe and nationwide, across the commonwealth, and in our own backyards, newspaper journalists provide the accurate, fair, timely and thorough reporting individuals and communities need to...
Letter to the editor: Presidents who act like mad men
All this media fuss about whether the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should have been telling China that President Trump was not going to attack them presumes Trump’s ordering naval maneuvers in the South China Sea was the act of a mad man. Hardly. Such “saber rattling” was...
Letter to the editor: Booster shots are not so common
I’m writing to address incorrect assumptions in the editorial “Booster shots are as common as vaccines themselves.” Children do not, as was claimed, get periodic boosters for measles and mumps. They get one combined shot of measles/mumps/rubella at 12 to 15 months, and a second shot entering kindergarten — but...
Editorial: A winning hand at Westmoreland Mall, against the odds
For years, the stories coming out of malls have been pretty consistent — and pretty depressing. Stores closing. Anchors closing. Sales down. Traffic down. Just about the only thing rising was interest in online videos of what was happening behind the chained-up doors of long-shuttered shopping nirvanas of decades past....
Letter to the editor: Pa. legislators should support climate action
Imagine viewing the landscape from your home and seeing uncontrollable wildfires. Imagine losing your neighborhood to flood damage, summer temperatures so high you cannot feel comfortable and the rising costs of food limiting your grocery budget. I urge Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey to support President Biden’s bold infrastructure...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Oct. 4
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Oct. 4....
Editorial cartoons for the week of Oct. 4
Editorial cartoons for the week of Oct. 4....
Mona Charen: What we lost when the GOP lost itself
In the typhoon of congressional brinkmanship we witnessed last week, one detail caught my eye that easily could have been lost in the gales. A group of 35 Republican senators signed a letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden about an aspect of the House...
Gayle Manchin: Cooperation key to bettering life in Appalachia
This commentary concludes a series from the 13 states in the Appalachian Regional Commission. ARC is an economic development agency of the federal government and state governments focusing on 420 counties across the Appalachian Region. Since 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has collaborated with local and state partners...
Letter to the editor: In Pa., we get less for more
I just returned from my annual trek to the Washington, D.C., area. On my way home, I stopped at the rest area in Frederick, Md., and again at the public rest area in Pennsylvania on Interstate 70 outside of Breezewood (I drink way too much coffee). The rest area in...
Letter to the editor: Renaming Women’s Health Protection Act
The federal Women’s Health Protection Act is badly misnamed. It should be renamed the Abortion Without Limits Bill. This dangerous legislation would eliminate commonsense protections such as parental consent, informed consent and 24-hour waiting periods for abortion. It would also mean an expansion of taxpayer funding of abortion, which national...
Letter to the editor: Recalling a holy hymn writer
My family recently visited the monument dedicated to the ministry of hymn writer Philip P. Bliss. I had been wanting to travel to the little town of Rome in north-central Pennsylvania to see the monument that was built when thousands of Sunday school children gave their pennies for its construction....
Letter to the editor: The left has bowed to almighty dollar
The current ruling Democratic Party has succeeded in compromising the checks and balances that are necessary to protect and maintain our representative democracy. They have politicized virtually every government agency, including the military, as well as public institutions, including the majority of mainstream media, big tech, the unions, Hollywood celebrities...
Editorial: Why do Pennsylvanians pay higher price for energy?
The winter of 2021-22 is going to be a cold one, according to sources as traditional as the Farmers’ Almanac and as high-tech as AccuWeather, which predicts average temperatures in the region around 1 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit below normal, with the chill winds starting to blow as early as...
Letter to the editor: Misusing the word ‘freedom’
Personal freedom from the tyranny of a fascist or totalitarian government is what we all desire. However, the word “freedom” is sometimes used incorrectly. What has happened in Texas is a textbook example. The government of Texas wanted freedom from wearing masks and getting vaccinated. So covid cases spiked, sickening...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Pittsburgh’s own Freddie Fu
Like so many other immigrants before him, Freddie Fu found Pittsburgh, and he fell hard for it. The renowned orthopaedic surgeon and head of UPMC’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery died Sept. 24 at 70, here in the town that he loved and that loved him back. Freddie — everybody called...
Dan Rodricks: In Annapolis, an accounting of what they lost on the day of the Capital shooting
One by one, in the most profoundly personal ways, they told us what the depraved violence of June 28, 2018, had cost them. One by one, relatives of the Capital Gazette shooting victims described what the killer took from them: a brother who was “the curator of obscure family memories”...
Colin McNickle: Questioning Pittsburgh’s ARP spending
The City of Pittsburgh has finalized how it will spend more than $335 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) money. But serious questions abound, says a scholar at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “With the resolutions approved and a reporting system established, there are public policy questions that remain...
