Opinion category, Page 472
Letter to the editor: Biden clueless on weapons in Afghanistan
Say it ain’t so, Clueless Joe: The Taliban are now equipped with American M16 assault rifles! “I don’t know how that happened,” President Biden told George Stephanopolous in an ABC News interview Aug. 19, when asked if he didn’t think “this exit could’ve been handled better in any way.” Walt...
Letter to the editor: Valley community supports its police
I would like to thank the many volunteers who made ShawRide IV an unforgettable experience (“Hundreds of motorcyclists turn out for 4th annual Officer Brian Shaw benefit ride,” Aug. 21, TribLIVE). Organizing a ride of this scale required hundreds of caring, dedicated individuals. My wife and I joined the hundreds...
Letter to the editor: As in Vietnam, soldiers still pay the price
As I compose this letter, I can’t help but think of all the U.S. veterans I have thanked for their service over the last 31 years. As a child and young man of the Vietnam era, and now a witness of the military actions of the last 30-plus years, I...
Letter to the editor: Our leaders are trying to protect us
Concerning health, safety and well-being, many people believe it’s their right to choose what’s best for them and their families, and do not want to be mandated regarding masks and vaccines. How would they have reacted at the time of World War II? When air raid warning signals sounded, would...
Editorial: Why population counts should include prisoners — they live there
To count or not to count. That’s not quite the question pondered and decided last week by the Legislative Reapportionment Commission — the panel of lawmakers working on the nuts and bolts of redrawing legislative districts in reaction to the new census numbers. It isn’t about whether to count. It’s...
Letter to the editor: Different perspective on Afghanistan
Recent commentaries and letters have tried to place blame on what’s happening in Afghanistan on the current or past presidents, or even the military. Perhaps a different perspective is in order. Afghanistan is not so much a nation as it is mostly tribal, tribes trying to rule their own regions....
Letter to the editor: Racism, then and now
Recently I received an advertisement from a local church hosting a presentation denouncing critical race theory (CRT) and the hiring of an equity director for the Gateway School District. The speaker, Joseph L. Green, an African American Missionary Baptist minister, is an opponent of CRT. In my opinion, Green’s declamation...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Lead with kindness as tribute to Gene Vittone
Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone died last Saturday at 61 after battling cancer. Gene always carried a little shirt pocket notebook in which he wrote the names of drug overdose victims in his county. If you were with him when he got the call, conversation stopped as he sadly...
Geoffrey Pohanka: Clash of the titans, wind and coal
The headlines are clear: renewable energy is on the rise as a source of electricity for America and coal power is headed for the door. President Biden has set a goal 30,000MW of offshore wind by 2030, which is the equivalent of 2,500 12MW turbines, and this does not include...
John Stossel: Lessons from Georgia
Georgia (the ex-Soviet Republic, not the U.S. state) is now a remarkable success story. Its economy is growing at 5% per year, and the country ranks ahead of the United States in economic freedom. Yet, 20 years ago, Georgia was even more miserably poor than the rest of the former...
Dr. Rosanne Granieri: Sexual harassment is not funny
Recently, we’ve all likely heard them. They are, unfortunately, the type of stories we’ve heard before. Television networks, magazines, online news sources and newspapers carried the details and subsequent fallout. Let’s start with alleged alleged escapades of Andrew Cuomo as New York governor. These stories finally ended with Cuomo’s departure...
Sounding off: Plenty of blame for Afghanistan
What’s most astonishing about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is how astonished everyone professes to be, while conceding delaying the inevitable would not have prevented it. Failure is often an orphan; this one lays claim to plenty of fathers. Bill Clinton regrets not assassinating Osama Bin Laden after the 1998...
Letter to the editor: Issues with electric vehicles
I realize electric vehicles are getting very popular, but I have some issues with them. First, they have limited range, and would add an enormous amount of time for a trip, let’s say from Pittsburgh to Atlanta. The second issue is the availability of charging stations as well as the...
Letter to the editor: Bigger problems than social media
I hate to rain on Mallard Fillmore’s parade to go after social media, but America has bigger fish to fry. Our law enforcement agencies are doing their best to round up the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and their ringleader who caused the death of at least one police officer and put...
Editorial: So now the legislature is guardian of public health
In March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic erupted, Gov. Tom Wolf declared an emergency. It was the right move at the time. That does not, however, mean that every step Wolf has taken since has been on firm ground. There have been plenty of errors, both forced and unforced, in...
Letter to the editor: Still using Trump as an excuse
The illogical, absurd letter by William J. Bilo Sr. (“Republicans, do the right thing”) demands an answer. The Democrats simply will not let Donald Trump rest; he is their excuse when things go wrong, and they are going wrong big time. President Biden has been so hell bent on reversing...
Dr. Andrew Smolar: A psychiatrist’s perspective on kids returning to school
I consider myself fortunate. Our kids are in their 20s. Two are in graduate school, and two have begun careers. They were vaccinated last spring. They embrace masks when they are indicated. They work on Zoom, in-person, and they have the freedom — backed by their institutions — to choose...
Michael Lamb: Pass the infrastructure bill
During my time as city controller, I’ve expressed concern about Pittsburgh’s “infrastructure deficit” — the repairs and improvements we should be making to our roads, bridges, wastewater systems and other critical infrastructure compared to what we actually complete each year. Consider this: Pittsburgh has nearly 1,000 miles of paved roads...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Tired of marching for what should already be ours
He said many profound things that day. He said America had given African Americans “a bad check.” He said he had come to remind the nation of “the fierce urgency of now.” He said we might hew “out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” He said, “I...
Letter to the editor: Pulling out of Afghanistan was right move
Twenty years, $2 trillion and thousands of our troops killed or wounded. How much is enough? We spent billions of dollars to train 300,000 Afghanistan troops. We equipped them with all of the technology and weapons they could possibly need to fight the Taliban, and what did they do when...
Letter to the editor: A dog’s wisdom
“Mutt” is a mean word. So is “mongrel.” I’m pleased everyone is sensitized to the impact words have. “Dog.” Use the word “dog.” I am a dog, as good-natured, complex, fallible and canine as any Afghan hound or Yorkshire terrier. And now I have to let it out. I’m not...
Lori Falce: Frivolous lawsuits? Don’t be a baby
Everyone loves to talk about that hot, hot coffee at McDonald’s and the frivolous lawsuit that popped up when a woman complained that her hot coffee was — surprise, surprise — hot. This is why we can’t have nice things, they say. This is why we have warnings on irons...
Letter to the editor: Pat Buchanan’s racism appalling
I was appalled at the blatant white supremacism and hateful rhetoric being spewed in Pat Buchanan’s column “Is diversity making U.S. stronger?” (Aug. 18, TribLIVE). Correlation doesn’t equal causation — Buchanan implies a fallacious connection between the drop in white births over the past decade and the presence of other...
Laurels & lances: Corn, community and stepping up
Laurel: To kernels of kindness. The area has been dealing with increased food insecurity in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic for more than a year. Food banks have been hit hard, and donations are always welcome. But a special kind of donation required additional hands Wednesday when 30 volunteers...
J. Joseph Cullen: Best options for Pa.’s coal plant communities
Last week, a Pennsylvania State Senate Committee issued four pages of procedural objections about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a plan to reduce carbon pollution from power plants in the state. While the bureaucratic issues raised will be sorted out by the regulatory process and/or the courts, the committee...
