Opinion category, Page 556
Steven Chanenson and Jordan Hyatt: Vaccine decisions for the incarcerated
After a powerful fall resurgence, covid-19 has left no aspect of life untouched, including in Pennsylvania’s state prisons and county jails. Now that the first shots have been given, doctors, ethicists and politicians have begun to consider who should be vaccinated next and in what order this should happen. One...
Letter to the editor: Lectured on covid-19 vaccine
This virus has been hard on everybody. Since April, we’ve been told to wear a mask and social distance. We were locked down and then partially reopened. Everybody managed to have some semblance of summer. The cases started going up. Once again we’re locked down and told to avoid family...
Letter to the editor: America is lost
Who would vote for abortions, higher taxes, open borders, neverending wars, defunding police, possibly shutting our country down again, eliminating the Second Amendment, removing freedom of religion, etc.? Would you vote for this? This is what I see as the Democratic platform. Apparently, a President Obama clone has won the...
Lori Falce: Government by procrastination is no way to run a nation
Tick, tick, tick. The clock is counting down. Down to a line drawn in the sand — the minute that the federal legislators all pack up and leave Washington for their home states. Gotta love Christmas break, right? Except that the same thing happens every year. Something comes down to...
Laurels & lances: Shots, lockdown and cops
Laurel: To first steps. The fight against the coronavirus pandemic took a giant leap forward this week. UPMC began administering the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to health care workers. Five of the hospital system’s employees took the shot Monday in a livestreamed event, much like those held around the U.S. This isn’t...
Letter to the editor: Election was fair; Trump must go
I am 6-foot-4-inches tall, have wavy blond hair, and have a Ph.D. and a law degree. Oh, and I also won the presidential election. That’s all a lie. I’m 5-foot-8, bald as a cue ball, have no college degrees and didn’t even run for dog catcher, let alone president. It’s...
Colin McNickle: The daunting task of reshaping Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
The enrollment and financial woes of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) are well known. And fixing the mess will be a monumental challenge, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. The 14-school system’s enrollment has plunged by 21% from its 2010 peak of 119,513...
Jonah Goldberg: Give globalism its due for speedy vaccine rollout
In normal times, most people don’t think of vaccines as a political issue at all. But a small minority — one that defies easy pigeonholing on the left or right — thinks vaccines are either unsafe or shouldn’t be mandatory or, presumably, both. (At this point I wouldn’t be shocked...
Robert Smith: The nature of environmental quality
We have all heard the ongoing allegations of toxic pollution spewing from big business destroying our environment and killing us, cancer rates and respiratory diseases on the increase because of big businesses polluting for profit. These are some of the many emotionally charged allegations leveled by environmental groups. These types...
Editorial: Highlands has no right to hide public info
Highlands School District doesn’t want to release information that should be made public. If this sounds familiar, it should. This is the kind of thing Highlands does regularly. Over the last two years, the Tribune-Review has filed multiple Right to Know Law requests, asking that Highlands do the bare minimum...
Letter to the editor: Value hard work, not handouts
Dear President-elect Biden, Would you consider giving up your salary to be put back in to help pay down the country’s debt? Maybe you could put it into that student loan forgiveness program. I’m really curious about that. I believe that as an adult, when I run up debt, I’m...
Letter to the editor: Small sacrifices would have prevented shutdown
It’s shutdown time again, and one more nail will be placed in the coffin of small businesses that have somehow managed to survive this pandemic. There seems to be some confusion as to why it is again necessary to take this extreme approach. The reason is because some of you...
Letter to the editor: Masks and political control
With the increases in covid-19, it seems to me that wearing masks has failed to halt the spread of this virus. Here is an alternative to mask wearing: Take the temperature of each person entering a store, restaurant, bar, club, stadium, funeral home, sports arena or church, and deny entrance...
Letter to the editor: Political therapy
The facilitator of the political therapy group noted an empty chair and asked, “Where’s Bill?” “He switched positions on election fraud,” said Kayleigh. “Lock him up! Lock him up!” they all shouted. “Show of hands: Who believes the election was stolen?” the facilitator asked. All hands were raised. Rudy raised...
Letter to the editor: Why aren’t we autonomous?
Autonomous — word of the decade. Politicians and car designers are all aflutter to get autonomous vehicles to make our lives better. And cheaper. Trucks can deliver food from the farm direct to your kitchen 24 hours a day. No messy union rules. Did I mention cheap? But I’m more...
Peter Morici: Once vaccines roll out, Biden must get millions back to work
President-elect Joe Biden ran on a platform to address climate change, remedy inequality, resurrect the economy, and implement a more focused covid-19 strategy but he faces some tough challenges delivering. It appears that Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna should be rolling out vaccines soon, but it will take months to...
Sean Kertes and Doug Chew: Why Excela received $5 million grant
We write in response to the Dec. 4 letter “$5 million grant to Excela wrong.” Transparency in government is important, so we’d like to set the record straight. The basis for a grant to Excela was set as far back as July 6, when Excela’s leadership team met with the...
Letter to the editor: Fondly remembering George W. Bush
The presidency of President George W. Bush is looking better and better with each passing day. Doug Baughman Robinson...
Editorial: When prisons are covid hotspots, the community suffers, too
The coronavirus pandemic has hit certain populations hard. Seniors are at risk. So are diabetics. Cancer patients. People with pre-existing respiratory or circulatory conditions. That makes some locations particularly important to protect. Personal care homes. Senior centers. Nursing homes were among the first major hotspots for covid-19 outbreaks. But those...
Letter to the editor: Rep. Bob Brooks’ contempt for democracy
State Rep. Bob Brooks, R-Murrysville, recently sent a letter to his constituents intimating there were “terrible activities in some major cities” with regard to mail-in voting. He went on to support throwing out the results of the vote and not allowing the state’s electors to vote for the winner in...
Letter to the editor: The career politician and the honest man
Many years ago, I was employed by my local township. I learned a valuable lesson that I am reminded of by the 2020 election. I remember one election in particular. We had two first-time candidates running for office. Both campaigned on their desire to improve our township and the lives...
Letter to the editor: Looking at Trump’s accomplishments
Thanks to letter-writer Robert Szypulski for his compilation of Trump “deliverances” (“Thank you, President Trump”). Now to cases in no particular order of importance as space permits: • “Preserving 180 million employer health plans”: I didn’t know that they were endangered really, but I do know his administration is busily...
Letter to the editor: Loss of expertise at Allegheny County Jail
Regarding the article “Jail Oversight Board to investigate why high-ranking medical administrators keep quitting” (Dec. 4, TribLIVE): Janet Bunts, a seasoned health professional with 26 years’ experience, left her position as health services administrator after only three months, citing “a lack of leadership, lack of orienting new staff, a lack...
Pat Buchanan: Has America’s Suez moment come?
2020 surely will qualify as an “annus horribilis” in the history of the republic. By New Year’s, one in every 1,000 Americans, 330,000, will be dead from the worst pandemic in 100 years. The U.S. economy will have sustained a blow to rival the worst year of the Great Depression....
Cindy Adams Dunn and Stephanie Wein: Celebrating conservation win in year of loss
It seems like more than ever, we’re barraged by a news cycle that’s filled with depressing stories about all the things going wrong in the world, from the divisiveness of the election to extreme weather and destruction, and of course, the pandemic. But there’s some good news that has quietly...
