Opinion category, Page 633
Sounding off: How will you behave in the next pandemic?
How will you behave during the next pandemic if the virus kills children, adults and seniors equally? Would President Trump behave differently if his family was at risk? Would he treat preventable deaths as just part of doing business? Would you insist on opening everything and not wear a mask...
Letter to the editor: Trump derangement syndrome
The writer of the letter “Trump and responsibility of presidency” (May 30, TribLIVE) blasts the abilities and legacy of President Trump. Our Constitution allows for free speech. However, slander and suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome” is not a virtue to be shared. Our Constitution allows one vote for one candidate....
Letter to the editor: Pittsburgh Mills never needed, wanted
After a 30-day engagement and marriage in 1974, I was about to meet the relatives. The wife’s aunts and uncles were siting around the kitchen table mired in a heated discussion. They glanced up and greeted me and returned to the subject matter at hand: “We don’t need no damned...
Letter to the editor: Leaders must address hunger
Last week, I graduated from Winchester Thurston School. Instead of walking across a stage in front of my school community, I watched my name flicker across a laptop screen from my kitchen. What I miss more than the ceremony itself are the goodbyes to my classmates and teachers that cannot...
Letter to the editor: Don’t like president? Send stimulus check back.
Letter-writer Joe Palumbo (“Will America survive Trump?,” June 3, TribLIVE) wrote about his bad feelings for our president, but said he received his $1,200 stimulus check. If he was so unhappy with the president, he should have sent the check back so a deserving person could use this badly needed...
Letter to the editor: Trump and responsibility
President Truman famously said “The buck stops here.” But for Trump, it seems to be “I take no responsibility.” He said at the Republican National Convention in 2016 the following: “The most sacred duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to...
Editorial: Turzai’s goodbye is premature
There is no surprise to when an elected official’s term is due to start and stop. If you are hired to be an accountant or a lawyer or a grocery store clerk, you may face questions about that hiring date. Did you pass your background check in time to start...
John Stossel: Let vaccine volunteers risk their lives
Deaths from covid-19 are dropping, but we probably can’t resume normal life until someone develops a vaccine. Experts say it will take at least 12 to 18 months. Why so long? Because to make sure a vaccine works, researchers must recruit lots of volunteers and wait for them to get...
Walter Williams: The true plight of black Americans
While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called “systemic racism.” Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our...
Dr. Rachel Levine: Working for health of long-term care residents
The vision of the Pennsylvania Department of Health is a healthy Pennsylvania for all. This includes vulnerable populations like residents in rural communities and minority communities, as well as seniors and those living in skilled nursing homes. Since the start of the Wolf administration, we have made it a priority...
David Kennedy: State Police holds troopers to highest standards
Pennsylvania state troopers don’t enlist for medals or to win popularity contests. Many of us grew up wanting to be troopers, proud to serve our communities and willing to lay down our lives if necessary. Since the formation of our department in 1905, our ranks have suffered 98 line-of-duty deaths....
Letter to the editor: Police should take vacation
One sure way to highlight the need to control supposedly peaceful protests that morph into violent confrontation, looting and destruction of property is for police to withdraw from the troubled areas. Law enforcement officers en masse should take a one-week vacation and let mayors, city officials, and their political allies...
Letter to the editor: Ending injustice
The backlash of unrest on our city streets exposes two unresolved problems. The first is the immediate issue, which is an egregious absence, or at the very least, a massive delay of legal justice when it comes to felonies committed by white law enforcement against black people. The second, deeper...
Letter to the editor: Thanks to front-line workers
I read Monica Bensko’s letter “Thoughts from a front-line cashier” (May 21, TribLIVE) at least eight times. It was one of the most well written and clear pronouncements of what really should be important today. She didn’t scream or make half-true comments. She very kindly explained something most people seem...
Paul Kengor: Life in nature amid pandemic
Life in nature, said Thomas Hobbes, is nasty, brutish and short. So is life for many infected by covid-19, the death toll from which is now 114,000. And yet nature can offer refuge, if people seek its best use. Pennsylvania has eased up on social-distancing restrictions. For many people, the...
Laurels & lances: Support, disappointment, growth
Laurel: To quiet support. When the world is turned upside down, it seems sometimes like the only way to be heard is to shout at the top of your longs, to bang a gong and light a fire. But there is another way to stand up for what one believes,...
Letter to the editor: Lesson in ‘forced choice’
Lori Falce’s column “Trolleys, Star Trek and a pandemic” (May 21, TribLIVE) was not only timely with respect to the current virus situation, it really is a constant in much of our every day lives. I first became familiar with the concept in graduate psychology at West Virginia University in...
Letter to the editor: Enough with property tax hikes
Enough is enough. When are citizens going to band together and say enough when these school boards decide to raise your property taxes 2 or 3 mills every year? Especially during this black period in our country. More than 40 million people in our country have filed for unemployment, and...
Gillis Harp and P.C. Kemeny: That Confederate flag would have offended your great-great-grandfather
The U.S. Marine Corps decided recently to ban public displays of the Confederate battle flag. The generals explained that they took this strong action because the flag has “all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and practice groups whose divisive beliefs have no place in our Corps.” The same...
Letter to the editor: We carry our sanctuary with us
I just read yet another letter in the debate about the spiritual perils of churches closed because of covid-19 concerns. I sympathize with those who have lost what for them seems essential to their worship, but I recently came across a perspective from Christian pastor and author A.W. Tozer that,...
Letter to the editor: Health care and mask mandates
When government decides to do something, constitutional limitations mean nothing. It assumes its citizens will go along with the power grab without questioning the legality of it. President Obama wanted the Affordable Care Act passed. To help pay for this first cousin of national health care, the government mandated everyone...
Letter to the editor: Trump shirks, deflects, takes credit
Trump sought to take credit for the coronavirus relief package passed by Congress by, in an unprecedented move, having his name put on IRS checks issued to the public as part of that bill. Here’s a modest proposal that makes more sense: Trump’s name should appear on death certificates of...
Editorial: Nursing home tests must be priority
The new plan for Pennsylvania nursing homes is to test everybody. If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because it sounds like the old plan. At least in the shorthand. The order issued Monday by Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Rachel Levine requires all nursing home residents and staff members be tested...
Colin McNickle: In pandemic, opportunity for Port Authority
The Port Authority of Allegheny County, its ridership pummeled by the coronavirus-sparked shutdown and future funding streams a question mark, must begin to economize, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Given financial resources will be even more scarce in the new fiscal year, steps must be...
Letter to the editor: Ending surprise medical bills important now
In these days of the covid-19 pandemic, there is one easy, positive action our state legislators can take right now to help: They can vote to pass House Bill 1862, which would end the practice of surprise medical billing. One in three Pennsylvanians has received surprise medical bills. This occurs...
