Opinion category, Page 501
Letter to the editor: Respecting all sides in covid experience
Let’s commend the Trump administration for orchestrating rollout of multiple covid-19 vaccines in a time frame that was considered impossible by experts, and the Biden administration for grabbing the baton and seeing that a large portion of the country gets vaccinated in quick order. Let’s respect the concerns of those...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Pittsburgh moves forward with Ed Gainey
Last Tuesday, when Bill Peduto became the first incumbent Pittsburgh mayor since 1933 to be booted from office, it was a story both as old as politics and also new again. He never warmed to the essentials of city government, and he missed by a mile the changes in the...
Cynthia Fisher: Hospital price disclosures reinforce importance of price transparency
The Biden administration has begun enforcing the hospital price transparency rule that took effect at the beginning of the year. Recent research published in Health Affairs finds that only about one-third of large hospitals are complying with the order. The rule requires hospitals to post their real prices, including their...
Sounding off: Lincoln’s Lyceum Address is enlightening
I’d like to encourage everyone who reads this to please look up on Google or YouTube the 1838 Lyceum Address by Abraham Lincoln. It was written 23 years before the Civil War. Similar to today, tensions were high, and there was much unease. Lincoln warned the nation of immense harm...
Alexandra Wilkes: Mental Health Awareness Month
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness about how mental health impacts our overall wellness. It’s a time to shine a spotlight on available resources, educate the public, and advocate for policies that focus on the needs of people with mental illness and their families. Most...
Letter to the editor: Another tax increase in Latrobe
So the Greater Latrobe School Board wants a tax increase (“Greater Latrobe to consider tentative 1-mill tax hike, $57.7M budget,” May 12, TribLIVE). Try to live within your budget, like all the senior citizens in the school district have to do. Enough is enough. Unfortunately, we can’t just pass on...
Letter to the editor: Biden is taking us backward
I believe Joe Biden is intent on taking this country back to a time when Democrats’ policies destroyed the family unit. During a 2019 campaign event, Biden referred to himself as the “savior around the world.” He touted a plan to force American taxpayers to fund abortion through Planned Parenthood....
Editorial: A clear rejection of solitary confinement in Allegheny County Jail
Tuesday’s election was heavy on ballot questions. The ones that tended to gain the most attention were the two at the top — statewide proposals to fence in the emergency powers of the governor; those amendments passed by a close 53% to 47%. Another amendment that would protect people from...
Letter to the editor: Dollar stores and the Green New Deal
Our plethora of dollar stores have improved everyone’s life so much I can’t withhold gratitude. I have purchased skin care products that reduced acne. Serious medical problems too personal to go into have been treated successfully with dollar store frankincense and myrrh. Poison ivy. ’Roids. Bicycle injuries. All treated with...
John Stossel: Labor shortage caused by government
America has a record 8.1 million job openings. The media call it a “labor shortage.” But it’s not a labor shortage; it’s an incentive shortage. “No one wants to work,” says a sign on a restaurant drive-thru speaker in Albuquerque, N.M. “Please be patient with the staff that did show...
Jonah Goldberg: Supreme Court ruling on abortion case could be game-changer
The Supreme Court recently announced it will take up Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi law that all but bans abortions after 15 weeks. It’s the first case in years that could result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that,...
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ still feels urgent, still feels now
Fifty years ago. Left-wing terrorists exploded a bomb at the U.S. Capitol. An Army officer was convicted in the massacre of civilians at My Lai. Vietnam chewed up another 2,414 American lives. And across the country, needles were lowered for the first time to the grooved surface of a certain...
Letter to the editor: Russia and China going green
I’m happy Russia is joining countries signing on to the “green” initiative to reduce carbon emissions. This is good news because in January 2020 they committed the equivalent of $300 billion in incentives for oil and gas developments in the Arctic Ocean. I’m sure Russia’s goal is to protect these...
Letter to the editor: Freedom, passports and guns
Regarding the letter “Expanding, not restricting, our freedoms” (May 4, TribLIVE): I’ll put these “facts” to bed, in order. Vaccine passports? Guess what — I already have the freedom to go into a restaurant or stadium without a passport. If one is required, that is not freedom, that’s privilege. The...
Lori Falce: Gaza is lesson in compromise
Both sides dig in. Both sides are sure they are right. Both sides are sure there is no middle ground — only winners and losers. It is the story of our politics. It happens in halls of Harrisburg and the courthouses of counties and God knows it happens every day...
Letter to the editor: Trump’s hall of criminals
My list for President Trump’s hall of corruption includes Bill Barr, Mike Pompeo, Rudy Giuliani and many others. The following is a list of members of Trump’s hall of criminals. All of these individuals were pardoned, except Rick Gates and Michael Cohen, by Trump. They all lied to the FBI,...
Letter to the editor: Some truths about Trump
What is the “new government” so afraid of? If the President Trump supporters (rioters) had really meant harm, they couldn’t have been stopped. There may have been some “plants” who intended harm, but most were demonstrating against what they felt was an unjust election of a president unfit for the...
Laurels & lances: Doses, closures, alternatives
Laurel: To house calls. To reach the 70% vaccination threshhold that experts say is necessary to fight off the coronavirus pandemic, it is important to get to as many adults as possible. Protecting people with medical conditions that put them at particular risk is even more important. But home care...
Mona Charen: What if Roe v. Wade is overturned?
As soon as the Supreme Court granted cert in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, I rushed online to see the anticipated outcry. More on that in a moment. The case challenges the constitutionality of Mississippi’s gestational age law that barred abortions past 15 weeks except in...
Lou Barletta: Why I’m running for Pa. governor
Thirty-seven years ago, my wife Mary Grace and I started our pavement marking business with $29.95 and a dream to build something for our family, and five years later it was the largest of its kind in Pennsylvania. Along the way we had setbacks, as any business owners will face,...
Editorial: Enhancing high school graduations with a virtual touch
The Class of 2020 didn’t graduate the way the classes that came before them did. For most graduates, the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic stole the pomp and circumstance from their commencements. There were no auditoriums packed with parents and grandparents snapping pictures and cheering when names were called and...
Colin McNickle: Pittsburgh’s office vacancy trend discouraging
The trend is not good for the prime office vacancy rate in Pittsburgh’s central business district (CBD). And it is difficult to see things changing, given the marketplace and government policies, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Unfortunately, if the past is prologue, there appears to...
Letter to the editor: About the Keystone XL pipeline …
Regarding Ben Day’s letter “What about the Keystone XL pipeline?” (May 19, TribLIVE): Mr. Day, that pipeline was never intended to supply finished petroleum products. In fact, it was an interface to move a third-rate oil sand crude to port from Canada. Nothing more. Lenny Mucci Derry Township...
Letter to the editor: Problems with ‘alternative’ sources
Producing carbon fiber is a very polluting process, almost as bad as lithium for batteries or ethanol for gas, not quite as bad as solar cells. (Look it up, but don’t Google it: Check DuckDuckGo for a partial list of Google’s data partners.) All four of these “alternative” sources depend...
Letter to the editor: Republican liars and deniers
The former president has turned the GOP into a party of liars and deniers who are trying to rewrite history. I watched the siege of the Capitol on Jan. 6. No way did it appear to be a “normal tourist visit” of the Capitol. Normal tourists don’t usually arrive armed...
