Joseph Sabino Mistick Columns category, Page 13

Here is the question Sen. Kamala Harris should have been asked during the Democratic Party’s presidential debate, and it would have been a good question for each of the candidates: “If you were in the United States Senate when the major civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965 was being...

Golf is “a good walk spoiled,” according to some non-golfers. But it still has a tremendous following. And, since it started as a game for those fortunate enough to afford the gear and take a whole day off, it has presented image problems for politicians. “Presidential golf” has been a...

Tragedy lingers. The sadness and the heartache hang in the air — especially right after and even if the victims are gone. The horrible power of the moment has its own life, cautioning us and providing a lesson. It was that way last week, when a last-minute trip to the...

I am nearly twice as old as my father was when he died. The young man had come home from war broken, but hopeful enough to get married and have a son. He lived like he was going to grow old. His death was a tragedy, but it was the...

Leon Redbone died last month. The 69-year-old singer and guitar player stopped performing a few years ago for health reasons, but he had a long run and kept his loyal followers happy with 17 albums and a raft of club appearances for nearly five decades. In his family’s announcement of...

Most of us know about the Triple Crown, three big horse races that begin with the Kentucky Derby in early May, followed by the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. Since the Roman emperors, there has been a formula of “Bread and Circuses” to create welcome diversions for the governed. Even...

In 1868, Union General John A. Logan issued General Orders No. 11, establishing a day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” We still remember our war heroes that way. What is...

“I think if you look at Joe’s record, and you look at my record, I don’t think there’s much question about who’s more progressive,” Bernie Sanders recently said on ABC’s “This Week.” And, if that’s how America sees it, that could be a good thing for Joe Biden as he...

In 2014, Jeb Bush had not yet announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president when he said that refugees crossed our border “because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony....

“There are no second acts in American lives,” according to F. Scott Fitzgerald. And that has always seemed especially true in the lives of American politicians, who were easily knocked off the stage by the slightest misstep. For too long, America placed its leaders on unrealistically and undeservedly high pedestals,...

When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that Donald Trump is “just not worth” the trouble and division that would be caused by an attempt to impeach him, she was doing more than just throwing shade at Trump. There are good governmental reasons to avoid the national ordeal of...

A “war of all against all” is how English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the natural state that society would be reduced to without the modulating force of government. Hobbes believed that a lack of authority would lead every man to believe that he “has a right to every thing,”...

“Cruella De Vil” and “The Queen of Mean” are just a couple of the nicknames for Kirstjen Nielsen that have been making the rounds since she was fired as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. At the end of the day, “Cruella” was not cruel enough and the “Queen”...

Back in the days when the Edgar Thomson Works was booming, the road along the mill wall was jammed with workers’ cars during the change from second trick to the overnight shift. For half an hour or so, two-thirds of the work force filled the streets around the mill, jockeying...

“Love thy neighbor” is important enough to get top billing in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and a similar command is part of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Islam. But, in our political culture, contempt too often takes the place of love, and our neighbor is quickly...

With 5 million residents, New Zealand is large enough to have some big problems but small enough to handle them sensibly. When a new national anthem was proposed — an issue that would polarize most nations — the new anthem was added without dropping the old one, a decision less...

If you wonder why some Americans are divided and isolated these days, think about all the places like Frank’s Barbershop in New Kensington that are no longer there, places where folks got together for the sake of being together. Tony Buba, the great independent filmmaker from Braddock, shows us what...

From the beginning, the Founders of this nation understood that all eyes would be on America, and they made it clear in the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence that they cared about what the world would think of us. “When in the course of human events it becomes...

Since 1803, February has come and gone with hardly any mention of Marbury v. Madison, which was decided by the Supreme Court 216 years ago. The principle of judicial review was established then, and without that, American history and these last two years would have been very different. The case...

When Donald Trump accused Democrats of “becoming the party of socialism” at his El Paso rally this month, he left no doubt as to what his campaign message will be in 2020. Trump is anything but coy, and he once again telegraphed his punches. Earlier, in his 2019 State of...

Let us start with the fact that Pittsburgh City Council’s gun-control legislation is born of heartbreak, frustration and anger over the murder of 11 of our neighbors during morning services at the Tree of Life synagogue in October. Councilman Corey O’Connor’s proposal to regulate guns within Pittsburgh city limits is...

At times during the State of the Union speech, Donald Trump sounded like he wanted everyone to love each other. If you just caught selected snippets, you might have believed that he had turned a new leaf, pushed the restart button and resolved to let bygones be bygones. “We must...

For all his life, Moe Coleman, was the man in the middle. It is not that he was “stuck” in the middle as some people often bemoan. He picked that spot because it was where he could do the most good. Moe died last week at age 86. He had...

Too many political journalists and talking heads compare presidential primary elections to horse races. Predictably, they are now using the old racing expression “And they’re off!” to describe the upcoming campaign season. The truth is that the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, while wide open now, begins with a...

When newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he was not downplaying the economic crisis that Americans faced. It was 1933, the lowest point in the Great Depression, and he was warning his fellow Americans that “unreasoning, unjustified” fear was...