Opinion category, Page 714
S.E. Cupp: Andrew Yang isn’t angry, & that’s great
Two upstarts in the 2020 presidential election — Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson — are both polling well below the front of the pack. The three front-runners — Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — currently enjoy a full 60% of Democratic support nationwide. But despite their lack of...
Dr. Rachel Levine: Naloxone key to saving lives
We know there isn’t a city, town or borough in the commonwealth, or in the nation, left untouched by the opioid epidemic. We know that this epidemic is an equal opportunity disease — there is no gender, race, ethnicity, income bracket or education level that has not felt the effects....
Editorial: Keep politicians off pedestals
It is hard to believe that someone who makes the laws could break them flagrantly. But it happens. It happens more than we would like to admit. Elected officials are arrested. They plead guilty. They are convicted. They can serve prison sentences and sometimes they come back from political death...
Letter to the editor: Wolf’s charter fee-for-service model robs students
Imagine your house was robbed, and you called the police to report the incident. Yet, before the police step in to solve the case, you must pay a substantial fee for their help in recovering your stolen property. Sounds backwards, right? Well, that’s the same logic at play in Gov....
Letter to the editor: Crawford Run Road
Well, taxpayers of Frazer, East Deer and Indiana, here we go again. Thanks to the Allegheny County executive’s infinite wisdom, the county is half-patching Crawford Run Road again. The saying goes, why is there always time to do it over but never time to do it right the first time?...
Letter to the editor: Fix bricks on Elm Street instead of paving
Regarding the article “Plan to pave brick street in South Greensburg sparks debate” (Sept. 3, TribLIVE): Old-timers who knew how to work to keep our community in good shape are gone. There are people out there who can fix bricks, no doubt at a lower price than the cost of...
Letter to the editor: NYT failures proof media out of control
The New York Times has admitted that it failed to include certain facts in its Sept. 15 article claiming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh committed sexual misconduct during his college years at Yale 30 years ago. The article said a classmate, Max Stier, claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to a female...
Editorial: Narcan isn’t addiction antidote
People are alive today because of Narcan. That is absolutely indisputable. Narcan, the brand name for naloxone, is like a pharmacological blindfold. If someone has overdosed on a narcotic, a dose of Narcan can make the body and brain ignore the drugs. Pay no attention to that heroin. What heroin?...
George Will: Hong Kong’s resistance offers lessons for Taiwan
TAIPEI, Taiwan What happens on Hong Kong does not stay there. The ongoing tsunami of discontent washes over this island, which, like Hong Kong, is navigating the choppy waters of relations with the same large and menacing mainland neighbor. This nation — which is such psychologically, if not in diplomatic...
Robert Daley: Sam Davis’ death shows reform needed in long-term care
Steelers Nation has been rattled by the death of Sam Davis, a former offensive lineman for the team and four-time Super Bowl champion. After a 13-season career in the National Football League, Davis, who had been suffering from dementia and was legally blind, was recently in the care of a...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Judge candidates by what’s in their hearts
When Ronald Reagan was nearing the end of his second term in the White House, he wandered into the medical office one day, approached his physician and said, ”I have three things that I want to tell you today. The first is that I seem to be having a little...
Antony Davies & James Harrigan: Wolf should reform schools parents don’t choose
Last month, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that he would be undertaking “comprehensive charter school reform … (to) level the playing field for all taxpayer-funded public schools, (and) strengthen the accountability and transparency of charter and cybercharter schools.” At the heart of his announcement lie two assertions: first, that charter schools...
Colin McNickle: Pittsburgh’s anemic labor market
Job growth has slowed significantly in Greater Pittsburgh over the last few months. And while there typically are myriad factors in the job-creation equation, the proverbial “usual suspects” can continue to be tagged for the region’s anemic employment performance, an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy finds. “(T)he...
Letter to the editor: Independent won’t vote Democrat
As a registered independent, I am often asked with which party do I most associate. This is a very simple answer. I may vote for some Republicans. But because I describe myself as a “pro-American conservative,” I can never vote for a Democrat at any level. Also as a registered...
Letter to the editor: Property tax thwarts homeowners’ plans
My wife and I have reached the point in our lives where the kids are gone and our older home and land require more work than we’re able/willing to do, so we are attempting to downsize to a smaller property. Unfortunately, a prohibiting factor is the high property tax on...
Letter to the editor: Get informed on guns, NRA
Another biased and ill-informed letter from Robert Jedrzejewski (“NRA’s terroristic ways”) — on 9/11 no less. We of the NRA use the organization to lobby just like unions, businesses and other organizations. We don’t have to agree, just express our wishes. It would be nice if people checked facts instead...
John Stossel: Despite cable’s perspective, there’s good news
I rarely watch cable news anymore. It’s all hysteria, all the time. CNN: “We are destroying the planet.” MSNBC: “The middle class is disappearing!” I’m glad my favorite magazine, Reason, cuts through the gloom and tells us the truth: There is less war and more food. We live healthier and...
Editorial: Colt’s AR-15 decision is market driven
Guns aren’t just about hunting or target shooting or personal defense. They aren’t just about firepower. They are also about money. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, it’s big money. The total economic impact of the gun industry topped $52 billion in 2018. Nationwide, there are 311,991 jobs related...
Letter to the editor: 9/11 story should have focused on attack
Your front-page article on 9/11, with an inane acknowledgment of a new memorial park in Somerset (“Somerset County community starts memorial in honor of post-9/11 War on Terror,” Sept. 11, TribLIVE), is upsetting. Your article should have been about the attack, the enormous loss of life, and the grief and...
Letter to the editor: Reasons to be ‘proud’ of Trump
OK, I get it. All along I thought these people liked President Trump. I can see that all they wanted was a Republican in the White House. It does not matter what he says or does, he beat Hillary. Whoopee! He can disrespect veteran heroes, Gold Star Families and the...
Letter to the editor: Trump as messiah
Letter-writer Keith Kondrich recently implied that President Trump is the anti-Christ (“Anti-Christ,” Sept. 9, TribLIVE). From another perspective, maybe Trump is America’s messiah. Jesus came in the fullness of time to build his church. Trump came in the fullness of political time to Make America Great Again. Jesus came as...
Walter Williams: Racist exam questions?
The U.S. Department of Justice recently sued the Baltimore County government, alleging that its written test for police officer recruits is unfairly biased against black applicants. It turns out that black applicants failed the written test at a rate much greater than white applicants. That results in fewer blacks being...
Donald Boudreaux: In defense of so-called ‘price gouging’
It never fails. Every natural disaster brings in its wake higher prices for goods such as plywood and propane, and for services such as plumbing repair and carpentry. Just as surely, politicians and pundits and the general public — as they did in response to Hurricane Dorian — blame these...
Laurels & lances: Music, malice and money
Laurel: To making a good thing better. And bigger. The inaugural Greensburg Music Fest went well in 2018 with about 3,000 people showing up for concerts. It can’t get much better than that. Except it did. The second festival last week saw attendance top 5,000 music lovers coming out to...
Lori Falce: Vaping defense is up in smoke
Vaping was supposed to be better than smoking. That was the idea. It was vapor. Not smoke. All the nicotine with none of the risk. What could go wrong? A lot. People are dying. Not from cancer that they contracted after 40 years of sucking on smoke. Not from old...
