Opinion category, Page 513
Editorial: Giving Career and Technical Education the attention it deserves
Vocational education isn’t what it used to be. For one thing, say the words “vo-tech” to someone who works or advocates in the field and you will get some serious stink eye. It’s CTE — career and technical education, thank you very much. But there are a lot of other...
Letter to the editor: What Doug Chew’s constituents want
The testimony submitted by Republican Westmoreland County Commissioner Doug Chew to a state senate committee seeking comments on election integrity and reform deserves further response. It is a bit more than many constituents can swallow let alone, errr, chew on, especially his statement that “… most of my constituents would...
Letter to the editor: Skewed views on guns
In response to Al Duerig’s letter “More guns means more shootings” (March 28, TribLIVE), in which he uses all of the words anti-gun organizations blurb, I would like to offer the following: His analogy of “I hear all the gun advocates’ arguments and scoff, like guns don’t kill, people do....
Letter to the editor: Biden and his magic pen
The following is a movie that needs to be canceled so our children don’t see it: It is titled “Pinocchio Joe and His Magic Pen.” It hasn’t been three months and this puppet has made America the joke of the world. If you don’t or didn’t like President Trump, that’s...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of April 19
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of April 19....
Editorial cartoons for the week of April 19
Editorial cartoons for the week of April 19....
S.E. Cupp: Matt Gaetz, nonconsensual porn and you
Whether you consider them a tribute to body positivity and sexual liberation or a sign of civil and social decline, they are inarguably a hallmark of the modern era: nudes. Thanks to the internet and social media, the advent of easily shareable nudes, or sexually explicit photos and videos, has...
Letter to the editor: Combine vaccine passport, voter ID
As I read about the perpetual political wars over the concerns of having a vaccine passport, my solution (to please both Democrats and Republicans) is to just print the vaccine passport on one side and the voter ID on the other side. Simple, everyone is happy and the country is...
Editorial: Swatting back the scam artists that flock to a crisis
Never let a good crisis go to waste. It’s much more than a paraphrase of Rahm Emanuel as Obama White House chief of staff, or an oft-attributed aphorism of Sir Winston Churchill. It’s more like a political law of nature. Whole wedges of government have been created to address a...
Letter to the editor: Guns and mass shootings
Don Grasser in his letter “Our rights are for everyone” objected to the observation that “more guns mean more shootings.” He asked, “Guns were bought at a record pace last year, and how many mass shootings were there?” Well, this is something he could easily have looked up: Do gun...
Letter to the editor: Dangers of vaccination passports
Medical freedom and informed consent have always been fundamental principles in the American health care system. Requiring “vaccination passports” (documented evidence of vaccination) not only intrudes on the privacy of health information and frustrates the principles of medical freedom and informed consent, but its most nefarious infraction is that it...
Letter to the editor: Why Pa. turns out stellar wrestlers like Spencer Lee
I enjoyed Bill Beckner’s article “Iowa senior, Franklin Regional grad Spencer Lee named nation’s top wrestler” (March 30, TribLIVE). The article looked at Lee being named the Hodge Trophy winner for two years in a row, which is remarkable. Lee’s career at Iowa has been incredible as was his high...
Editorial: Pa. State System takes right step to curbing crazy tuition rates
There is a lot of talk about how to handle student loan debt. There are the loans the students take out. There are the loans the parents take out to help. The Federal Reserve estimates Americans have about $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. Student loans are an overwhelming burden...
Letter to the editor: Politics shaping faith, negatively
I was very impressed by Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column “Small wonder the church is shrinking” (April 6, TribLIVE). He states that for the first time since Gallup has been tracking religious membership, we are at an all-time low. In 1937, 73% of us belonged to some form of house of...
Letter to the editor: Abortion burial proposal invasion of privacy
Dear state Rep. Kathy Rapp: You continue to introduce legislation about me without returning my offers to talk. You don’t consult with the health care professionals that cared for me and my baby. Instead, you choose to bury your head in the sand because you don’t want to hear the...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Saying goodbye to Phil Coyne, the Prince of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh buried its own Prince Phillip last week. But Phillip A. Coyne Jr. was simply called Phil or Philly by everybody around here. Phil Coyne had seen a lot, laughed a lot and put a lot of smiles on other people’s faces. And his life was a master class in...
Joe Nocera: Bernie Madoff left behind only misery and heartache
Bernie Madoff is dead, and it is unlikely that even the people who once were closest to him will shed a tear. Not his wife, Ruth, whose life was destroyed when Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was revealed in December 2008. Not his brother, Peter, Madoff’s former chief compliance officer, who spent...
Robert Lysek: Public charter schools want real reform
It might surprise those listening to Gov. Tom Wolf constantly attacking public charter schools that the charter school leaders in Pennsylvania support comprehensive education reform and have supported it for years. What we don’t support are the arbitrary funding cuts the governor and anti-charter activists seek to prevent Pennsylvania families...
Sounding off: We don’t deserve the wealthy’s money
President Biden’s new plan to fund American public programs is by taxing the wealthiest Americans. It’s not a question of if they should, but how much. Yet the question that is never asked is, “Why do we deserve their money?” The seemingly overlooked answer is we do not. Elon Musk,...
UPMC’s efforts to eliminate health care inequities, racism
As Black obstetrician-gynecologists, midwives and members of the UPMC family, we have come together to highlight the current state of affairs for pregnant women of color. The U.S., a developed nation, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with Black women affected disproportionately in comparison with...
Letter to the editor: Urge leaders to work to prevent another pandemic
I can’t believe that a year ago this month my university sent me home because of the “new virus.” I remember thinking, “This won’t last long; in a couple weeks I’ll be back in school and everything will be back to normal.” Now here we are, a year later, with...
Letter to the editor: Mail-in voting good enough for Trump
Kudos to Commissioner Doug Chew. When I saw the headline “Westmoreland commissioner says county voters want end to no-excuse mail-in ballots, another disputes that” (March 23, TribLIVE), I wrote a blunt, acerbic email to the commissioner that emphatically indicated that I wanted to retain the mail-in ballot option. The commissioner...
Letter to the editor: Republicans making sacrifice by refusing vaccine
Republicans who refuse to get the covid vaccine are to be commended for making the ultimate sacrifice. Some Republicans are good people, of course, but clearly that doesn’t apply to Republicans in Congress. When they weaken American democracy, deny climate change and reject science, they create a menace to human...
Mona Charen: Not every tragedy is a racial lesson
Reliving the awful details of George Floyd’s slow suffocation is brutal and emotionally draining. As always in matters touching on race, the thrum of ethnic hostilities is the background noise. Some have been eager, since the trial began, to cite George Floyd’s drug use or heart trouble as the true...
John Stossel: Steven Crowder calls out censorship
The most viewed conservative commentator on YouTube is Steven Crowder with his channel, Louder with Crowder. His fans love his politically incorrect jokes. He also sets up a table at college campuses, invites people to debate and airs the debate unedited. One such video, titled, “There Are Two Genders: Change...
