Opinion category, Page 694
Pat Buchanan: Let the people decide Trump’s fate
Was there linkage between the withholding of U.S. military aid and the U.S. demand for a Ukrainian state investigation of the Bidens? “Was there a quid pro quo?” This question has bedeviled Washington for months now. “The answer is yes,” said U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland in sworn...
Mark DeSantis: The importance of getting political appointments right
Upon taking office, President George Washington promised to hire people “as shall be the best qualified.” We are struggling to meet that standard and with serious consequences. Today, the federal government is the world’s most powerful and complex bureaucracy within the world’s largest economy and includes, among other things, armed...
Lauren Mishoe: Federal plans would deprive patients of top-tier drugs
Diabetes is an epidemic in Pennsylvania. About one in 10 local adults lives with the disease. And the burden is growing: Roughly 3.5 million state residents are “pre-diabetic,” meaning their blood glucose levels put them at severe risk of developing diabetes later in life. The majority of these folks —...
Editorial: Sextortion shows criminal evolution
Crime doesn’t like to sit still. It doesn’t achieve a goal, take a break and retire, content that it has run its race. No, crime is a lot like modern business. It wants to see growth. It wants to expand its reach. It wants to find new product lines and...
Letter to the editor: On impeachment, no courage in the Senate
The authority of the U.S. Constitution fades as sections dealing with impeachment are ignored by President Trump and his Republican allies. Trump gets away with abusing power by ordering witnesses with firsthand knowledge of his impeachable acts — Bolton, Pompeo, Mulvaney, McGahn, Giuliani — to ignore subpoenas by smearing those...
Letter to the editor: Impeachment hearings are a coup attempt
These impeachment hearings are basically the Democrats trying to damage a Republican presidential candidate who they say tried to get information on a Democratic presidential candidate for his vice presidential threat to cut off aid if Ukraine didn’t fire a prosecutor . Also, Joe Biden’s son got a board position...
Tom Purcell: OK boomer — there’s hope for the future
I don’t blame millennials and Gen Z for mocking baby boomers with the trending “OK boomer” meme. I’ve had my issues with baby boomers, too. “OK boomer,” dictionary.com reports, “is a viral internet slang phrase used, often in a humorous or ironic manner, to call out or dismiss out-of-touch or...
Jonah Goldberg: ‘Deep state’ contagion has spread beyond impeachment
The deep state is the right’s new bogeyman. I’d wager that until fairly recently, few people had ever heard the phrase. I’d also bet that roughly 99% of those who fling the term around have no idea that it’s borrowed from Turkish politics. The idea of a deep state, or...
Editorial: Pay attention to all domestic violence
A couple has a fight. A couple has an ugly fight. Someone ends up in the emergency room. Police are called. Charges are filed. It isn’t a new story or a particularly surprising one. It happens every day — often several times a day. And this time, people are paying...
Letter to the editor: Why are atheists offended?
My question to letter-writer Courtney Hodge “Atheism & politics”: Why do atheists like yourself get so offended by people who recognize and worship God? Do you get offended by other religions? If you believe there is no God who created and loves you, why do you care about where the...
Letter to the editor: Pittsburgh losing valuable parking to bike lanes
It is disappointing that the mayor of Pittsburgh has not yet realized how important a vibrant shopping selection of stores is to the growth and vitality of the city. It is a challenge to overcome the loss of the major department stores, and with his continuous adding of more bike...
Letter to the editor: No reason to vote Democrat
All of the presidential politics letters seem to fall into two categories. They either praise President Trump and his accomplishments for our country, or they spew deep, seething rage, hatred and vicious name-calling at him and his supporters. What seems to be missing is an endorsement of any Democrat and...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Dec. 2
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Dec. 2....
Editorial cartoons for the week of Dec. 2
Editorial cartoons for the week of Dec. 2....
Jennifer Rafanan Kennedy & Corey O’Connor: Pa. needs higher wages, self-governance
It has been nearly 11 years since Pennsylvania’s Legislature took any action to raise the state’s depressed minimum wage. While states all around us passed laws raising wages, Pennsylvanians have been stuck at the lowest level allowed by federal law, $7.25 per hour. After years of workers standing up, rallying...
Editorial: Put down cellphone while driving
There’s just no reason for it. People have been driving for more than 100 years. When the Model T first rolled off Henry Ford’s assembly line in 1908, it put Americans on the road and gave them a freedom they never had before. The cellphone has snatched that away. Ironically,...
Letter to the editor: Proud of West Newton’s GAP efforts
The Trib’s “Staycations” feature about the Great Allegheny Passage hike and bike trail that stretches 148 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. (“West Newton to Ohiopyle on the Great Allegheny Passage,” Oct. 27, TribLIVE) used West Newton as a starting place. And for good reason. While two hiking trail sections...
Letter to the editor: Let’s judge by character
I’ve been reading this paper for 44 years, and perhaps the greatest letter to the editor I’ve ever read was Steven Crichley’s “Apologies for being old, white, straight, conservative, Christian male” (Nov. 12, TribLIVE). Crichley apologizes for working hard over the past 40 years, obeying the law, paying his taxes,...
Letter to the editor: We must stop gerrymandering
We, as in you and I, must stop gerrymandering. Five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have failed us, and so we must rely on the state to eliminate gerrymandering. Let me be clear about this: Those who gerrymander admit their ideas do not represent the people. They fail the...
Caleb Verbois: Winter is always coming
One day last month, my father-in-law came to visit for a few hours. Around 3 p.m., he got back in the car for his 90-minute drive home to northeast Ohio — and then sat on the same quarter mile of Interstate 80 for nine hours before eventually getting home. Winter...
Alicia Harvey-Smith: Changing workforce, Act 76 place focus on career education
With deep roots in steel and manufacturing, Pennsylvania is well known as the state that built America. Towering skyscrapers and sprawling infrastructure are Pennsylvania’s long-standing calling card to our nation. Today, with the emergence of advanced manufacturing, robotics, automation and other tech-driven sectors, Pennsylvania is again well poised to drive...
Richard Edley: Services aiding Pa.’s most severely disabled individuals at risk
Even well-intentioned programs can have dire unintended consequences if the implementation isn’t done right, and that’s exactly what’s happening with the state’s Community Participation Supports (CPS) program. CPS is designed to support and facilitate the integration of individuals with intellectual disabilities into the community with meaningful activities, a concept that...
Ryan Costello: APEX Act will decimate Steel Country
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Steel Country is no doubt under strain. Over the past year, industry growth in states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin has slowed to a crawl. Pennsylvania has lost 8,100 manufacturing jobs since January. Despite the president’s best effort of looking out for America’s manufacturers,...
Editorial: Operation Santa Claus gives caring
There are words for the deficits in a person’s life. If you need food, you are hungry. If you need water, you are thirsty. If you need shelter, you are homeless. But there is a different kind of need — sometimes overlapping one or more or all of those —...
Letter to the editor: Attack on Yovanovitch was cruel
Even in this era of “alternative facts,” of reason being stood on its head, Elizabeth Gaston Barsoum’s letter “Yovanovitch’s intimidation claim laughable” is stunning for its cruelty and lack of compassion. One of the lowest lows in an administration which perpetrates atrocities on an almost daily basis was President Trump’s...
