Opinion category, Page 649
Letter to the editor: PLCB breaking law?
I believe the PLCB is breaking federal law by requiring payment by credit card for curbside pickup. Marked on every paper bill is the term “this note is legal tender for all debts public and private.” By not accepting cash for any transaction, is the PLCB in violation of federal...
Letter to the editor: Main reason to reopen schools
I need to speak out concerning our president’s desire to reopen public schools before this school year ends (“Trump urges states to consider opening schools before summer,” April 28, TribLIVE). Some people say we need to open schools so that parents can go back to work. But schools are not...
Letter to the editor: More reasons to avoid animal food products
Massive slaughterhouse closures are driving U.S. consumers to plant-based meat products, as sick workers pay the price. Tyson Foods, JBS USA and Smithfield Foods, the largest meat processors, have closed 17 plants, devastating rural communities and threatening the nation’s meat supply. Production is already down by 25%. In reaction, U.S....
Letter to the editor: Sacrificing lives for economy, war
There are people who are saying we are sacrificing people’s lives to open up business too soon. But don’t we send young men off to die in war so others may live in peace? Clem Zahrobsky Delmont...
Letter to the editor: Gov. Tom Wolf is protecting Pennsylvanians
In response to the letter “Disappointed in Wolf’s veto”: There has be no such anger or vitriol from Democrats in regards to matters related to covid-19. This letter perpetuates a false narrative that Democrats and Gov. Tom Wolf are against working families and want to stifle economic prosperity for Pennsylvanians....
Letter to the editor: Coronavirus, Trump & national debt
Imbleachment. Injecting with disinfectants is called embalming. That’s what the Egyptians did to the pharaohs. Anybody who defends this indefensible stupidity, including the hydroxychloroquine quackery, is probably a Trump boot licker. During President Obama’s eight years the national debt went from $12 trillion to $19 trillion, mostly due to the...
Letter to the editor: Electoral College works
The Electoral College is just one part of the election process that applies only to the executive branch. Letter-writer Ron Slabe (“Electoral College is archaic,” Feb. 25, TribLIVE) makes the failed assumption that the USA is a democracy. America is a constitutional republic, and the Founding Fathers in their wisdom...
Letter to the editor: Primary mail-in voting is a great dry run
After hearing Rich Fitzgerald’s announcement that Allegheny County would try to send mail-in ballots to every registered voter (“Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald calls for primary election to be conducted by mail”), I heard the backlash of those opposing such a move, mostly those fearing fraudulent voting as a reason....
Letter to the editor: China is serious threat to US
Letter-writer David Bastl reasonably indicated that “China is our enemy.” I would consider China to be a serious threat to the United States. Consider the following headlines from various sources from 2018 to the present: “With Ships and Missiles, China Is Ready to Challenge U.S. Navy in Pacific” “China Commissions...
Letter to the editor: Global strategy needed to stop pandemics
Diseases don’t respect borders. If the coronavirus outbreak has taught us anything, it’s that global health security is only as strong as its weakest link. That’s why we need a global strategy to defeat this pandemic. There is no silver bullet to stopping preventable diseases like the coronavirus from spreading,...
Letter to the editor: Westsylvania is looking good
Westsylvania was proposed in the 1770s as our nation’s 14th state. It ran along the Allegheny Mountains from Kentucky to southwestern Pennsylvania and included all of West Virginia. Gov. Tom Wolf has exposed his heavy-handed liberal agenda. It is time for southwest Pennsylvania residents to fulfill their destiny and secede...
Letter to the editor: Covid-19 & Trump doctrine
The Democrats and liberal media excoriate President Trump for his unyielding commitment to strong borders, one tenet of the “Trump doctrine.” They seem to hate that the president, well, puts America first. For most liberals, Trump’s “America First” doctrine is racist, xenophobic and wrong. Obviously, secure borders help keep terrorists...
Letter to the editor: Enjoying house an upside of staying home
Regarding the stress of staying home all the time: We spent a lot of money on buying and upgrading our house, so it’s nice to be enjoying it more. Lawrence E. Howard Jr. Plum...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Feeding bodies, souls in Pittsburgh
There are different types of hunger. Not knowing where your next meal is coming from is what we think of first, and there is a lot of that going on now. But it is just as important to feed the soul as it is to feed the body, and that’s...
Editorial: Wolf needs consistent message
It’s a system used for stoplights and preschool behavior charts: red, yellow, green. Apply it to the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and you have a series of gates that keep Pennsylvanians behind closed doors. Until May 8. On Friday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced a list of 24 counties that will go...
Sounding off: How about a moratorium on income tax?
Left-wing politicians advocate using the pandemic to shape the country with liberal ideology. What would happen if right-wing politicians used the pandemic to shape the country with conservative ideology? Imagine if in addition to spending $2 trillion on a coronavirus emergency response bill, we also placed a one-year moratorium on...
Letter to the editor: Pharmaceutical companies should put humans first
Ever notice that during almost every commercial break on TV, at least one commercial is for a pharmaceutical company’s drug, a drug that only can be provided via a doctors’ prescription? Instead of trying to convince us to talk our doctors into prescribing a drug we think may help us,...
Letter to the editor: Let’s keep coronavirus numbers in perspective
It has been said that the devil can quote Scripture for his purpose. In the same vein, one can cite statistics to promote a point of view. The article “8 new coronavirus cases in Westmoreland County, state total tops 4,000” (March 30, TribLIVE) told us that from March 29 to...
Letter to the editor: Leaders’ shutdown decisions devastating
I believe the quality of life for the vast majority, if not all, Americans has diminished. Of course the coronavirus is a huge factor, but the Draconian, seemingly arbitrary shutdowns by Gov. Tom Wolf, other governors and some mayors have hurt us greatly. The state now is planning to reopen...
Letter to the editor: We must contain coronavirus
Jay Londino’s letter “Shutting down not way to deal with virus” (April 23, TribLIVE) offers no clue as to what is the answer. He states that we “cannot shut down our country every time there is a virus outbreak.” Well sir, we don’t. In my 69 years I have never...
Letter to the editor: Inadequate models for covid-19
The problem in applying a model to a real-world situation is always the inadequacy, even more so when the model cannot be worked through to the end of the argument. So it is with Dr. Christopher Koman’s model of the lily pad in the pond (“Normalcy bias hampers fight against...
Walter Williams: Today’s Americans and yesteryear’s Americans
Dr. Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a military historian and a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He has written two articles relevant to today’s society. Last October he published, “Members of Previous Generations Now Seem Like Giants,”...
Editorial: U.S. Steel layoffs sign of bigger issue?
Maybe 2,700 doesn’t seem like that big a number right now. There are 30 million people who have filed for unemployment benefits in the United States in the six weeks since the coronavirus pandemic closed businesses and sent workers home. Last week alone, there were 3.8 million laid-off Americans filing...
Lisa Gonzalez, Olivia Bennett and Summer Lee: One way to prevent a worsening crisis? Cancel rent.
Every person in our community needs and deserves a safe place to call home. Yet in the richest country in the world, housing is shamefully unaffordable and people are facing unreasonable struggles to pay the rent. Even before this crisis, nearly 12 million people were spending half of their paychecks...
Colin McNickle: Pittsburgh’s road out of coronavirus downturn
Wrestling with a serious coronavirus-induced revenue shortfall, the City of Pittsburgh must cut spending and cannot afford to raise taxes, conclude researchers at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Now would be a perfect time to look at money-saving proposals — such as privatization and outsourcing — to reduce city...
