Opinion category, Page 564
Jonah Goldberg: Why forgiving student debt is a bad idea
One good rule of thumb is to judge parties and politicians by their priorities. Politicians often pretend to be for every good thing under the sun, so the best way to judge them is to look at which things they actually work to achieve or spend political capital on. This...
Tom Purcell: Thankful despite cancellation of family feast
My family canceled Thanksgiving this year — my favorite holiday since I was a kid. Usually, 30 to 40 people gather at my parents’ house and sit next to each other at three tables. But in this year of covid-19 — aptly named, because I and everyone I know has...
Kate Boulton: To help end overdose, we have to transform probation
As an increasing number of criminal justice policymakers acknowledge that we can’t punish our way out of the overdose crisis and as America faces a broader reckoning around our criminal legal system, we must address community supervision and its role as a driver of mass incarceration. For people who struggle...
Letter to the editor: Poor execution of Pa. travel restrictions
The value of requiring residents traveling outside of Pennsylvania to have a covid-19 test or quarantine upon return is one I’ll hold opinion on. The exception I do take is to the timing of this and to the lead time provided for compliance. The announcement of this policy was made...
Letter to the editor: Clarifying Jeannette budget details
The article “Jeannette officials OK preliminary budget with no tax hike” (Nov. 13, TribLIVE) lists budget costs of the four top departments in the city: police, $2 million; sanitation, $928,000; fire, $560,000; and streets, $527,000. I would like to clarify the sanitation department costs. On the revenue side of the...
Letter to the editor: Karl Marx, Joe Hill — friends of the worker
Regarding Grove City College professor Paul Kengor’s column “The new activists — no criticism, no dissent” (Sept. 17, TribLIVE) concerning his book “The Devil and Karl Marx”: If I could afford an agent and a publisher to promote it, I could write a book called “The Devil and Donald Trump,”...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Nov. 23
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Nov. 23....
Editorial cartoons for the week of Nov. 23
Editorial cartoons for the week of Nov. 23....
S.E. Cupp: Vengeance? No. Consequences? Yes. How to handle the post-Trump era
Much has been written about the art, ethics and prudence of revenge. It’s possible Jerry Seinfeld put it best. In an episode aptly titled “The Revenge,” Seinfeld tells George Costanza, “The best revenge is living well.” To which George dismissively scoffs, “There’s no chance of that.” The topic of revenge...
Rep. John Joyce: American innovation promises covid-19 hope
For centuries, America has been the land of promise, and we have led the way in lifesaving advancement. In the span of my medical career alone, I have witnessed remarkable innovation — from groundbreaking discoveries to new therapeutics and even cures for deadly diseases. In 2020, America’s scientists and researchers...
Editorial: Life lessons from Lucy’s kitchen
We should all live like Lucy. Lucy Pollock, 98, of Latrobe spent the last months surrounded by the love of her family and friends. And how those friends grew in that time. During the coronavirus pandemic, when people stayed home in lockdown and baking bread became the closest thing many...
Letter to the editor: Biden’s ‘Star Wars’-like rise to power
Letter-writer Mark Gostkowski (“A ‘Star Wars’-like ending to Trump presidency,” Nov. 17, TribLIVE) opined that the coming end of Donald Trump’s presidency is similar to the destruction of the Sith lord Darth Sidious in “Return of the Jedi.” I contend that Sheev Palpatine, senator of Naboo and secretly Darth Sidious,...
Letter to the editor: Voting a precious duty
Being an American, and living in the greatest and freest nation in the history of the world, is a privilege and blessing often taken for granted. Contrary to lying anarchists and socialists intent on misrepresenting America’s founding and current events to instigate unrest in the short term — and destruction...
Letter to the editor: Dangerous popularity contest
Politics is one of the least trusted professions in America, yet politicians are constantly involved in popularity contests. The dichotomy is deliciously ironic. How do you become popular within such a play? Act out what the audience wants you to be, not what you really are. That type of character...
Editorial: Vaccines great but pandemic not done
The vaccines are coming. In the last two weeks, two major pharmaceutical companies have made announcements about their covid-19 vaccines. Pfizer’s testing is showing a 90% efficacy. Moderna’s is 94.5%. Both are in the homestretch of a race with a huge jackpot — potentially millions of lives in America alone...
Letter to the editor: Covid-19 testing useless without follow-up
According to Wikipedia, in 2017, there were 143.3 million taxpayers in the United States. Last year, the IRS audited one out of every 220 taxpayers. Everybody fears an IRS audit because auditors tend to find things that could cause you a hardship, such as a fine or jail time. Sometimes...
Letter to the editor: Let’s give Joe Biden a chance
President-elect Biden’s favorite phrase is “possibilities for a brighter future.” As the most enduring democracy in the entire world, we, as a nation, have opportunities to build a lasting pathway of progress toward many common goods. Of course, this won’t be easy as divisiveness among our people has become a...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Time for Trump to accept his loss
Most times when you lose an election, that’s all there is to it — you lost. You are not alone, because the arithmetic in a two-party system means that about half of the candidates in a general election lose, but it still catches some candidates by surprise to be a...
Peter Morici: Expanding pool of skilled labor key to Biden resurrecting economy
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. Preliminary tests indicate Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine could be as much as 95% effective, and others are on the way from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Oxford-AstraZeneca. However, producing...
Nathan Benefield: Don’t raise taxes while Pa. families are hurting
Pennsylvanians have made tough decisions amid the profound economic costs of the covid-19 pandemic. Millions of Pennsylvanians lost their jobs temporarily or permanently this year. Sadly, families continue to struggle and sacrifice to stay afloat. In the coming state budget debate, lawmakers and the governor need to back them up...
Sheldon Jacobson: Food and consumer goods supply chains remain resilient
We can all remember the run on consumer goods like toilet paper and cleaning supplies back in March and April 2020. With an unknown, invisible virus circulating among us, any items or surface touched by a human hand were a target for disinfection. Groceries and other items delivered to our...
Letter to the editor: Why won’t Democrats take action?
I’m baffled by what I see and hear from the Democrats about this shameful, immoral Republican effort to steal the election from Joe Biden — nothing! Where are the protests? Where are the voices? I see and hear virtually nothing. Are we going to be mute for the next two...
Sounding off: With no evidence of voter fraud, let’s please move on
It is unfortunate that in these times anybody can throw out any sort of nonsense, and so many people will believe anything. Letter-writer Al Bianchini, offering no evidence, states that the election was “a fiasco” and “mail-in balloting is a disaster” (“U.S. voting system is a disaster,” Nov. 11, TribLIVE)....
Letter to the editor: What’s acceptable to the left
Every decade, the (Overton) window on what is acceptable gets opened a little further. A hundred years ago, women flirted by wearing a more provocative hat. Seventy years ago, smoking was marketed in movies. In the 1960s, people asked if God was dead. The ’80s saw an increase in porn,...
Editorial: PWSA plea needs to be clean start
The government has a problem with pollution. Some agencies just spew a lot of filth. Take the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Scott Brady announced that PWSA had pleaded guilty to eight federal charges in connection with a pattern of bad behavior from 2010 to 2017....
