Featured Commentary category, Page 4

By nearly all objective measures, the U.S. education system is not fulfilling its primary duty of ensuring that today’s students are prepared to achieve in the world of tomorrow. As we all know, modern society is becoming ever more dependent on technology. Hence, if American students are to compete in...

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s energy taxes won’t work. How do we know? The proof is right in front of you. Look at your energy bills. Talk to any Pennsylvanian. Unaffordable energy is a kitchen table topic for Pennsylvania households and a conference table topic for Pennsylvania businesses. And if you think...

The next few years are going to challenge our representatives in Washington to balance partisan politics against human rights and the interests of the people they serve. Pennsylvania’s members of Congress and senators have already been put to the test, and elected leaders like Sen. John Fetterman and Reps. Brendan...

Resist the urge to publish the American Dream’s obituary. It’s alive, though unwell. It’s no secret that the hallmarks of the dream have become unreachable for many Americans. Homeownership seems impossible in communities. Marriage rates have dropped. Families have shrunk. Even lifespans are on the decline. The dream’s vital signs...

One astonishing phenomenon (of admittedly many) in this second presidency of Donald Trump is his voluntary transfer of America’s greatest asset to his counterpart in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin. That asset is soft power. The concept was developed at the end of the Cold War by the international relations scholar...

Early in my career as a pediatrician, it would not be unusual to get a phone call in the middle of the night from the worried parent of a child with a high fever. I got out of bed, met the family in the emergency room and sat with them...

U.S. Steel has been in the news quite a bit within the last couple of years. It is enough to confuse the savviest of strategists. To make sense of it all, I list the two sides, their belligerents and their identities: Free trade — trade conducted freely with no tariffs,...

Forget better schools. Apparently, Pennsylvania students need fewer schools, even if that means hurting the kids who need the most help. That’s effectively the message that two of our state’s leaders have sent in the past few weeks. First, Gov. Josh Shapiro demanded cutting funding for cyber charter schools by...

While President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were duking it out in the Oval Office in a rhetorical version of the Ultimate Fighting Club that Trump loves, six Ukrainian Christian ministers from different denominations were coincidentally (or prophetically?) down the street telling guests at...

There might be a glimmer of hope in Pittsburgh’s still-rising central business district (CBD) office vacancy rates. But an economist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy cautions that there remain numerous caveats. Of course, the pandemic ushered in a new age of office work, more from home than in...

How many of us know what goes into the development of the medications we take? We take a medicine and hope it will work, that we’ll feel better shortly or we’ll be able to keep certain diseases in check. Very few of us have any concept of the years of...

The assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson triggered a disturbing avalanche of sympathy for his accused killer, often laced with sarcasm about health insurance systems for prior review for many services and claims reimbursement. UHC is a large multistate insurer subject to scrutiny for its generally high denial rates. A...

The national debt has been making the news, placing much of the focus on federal debt. Yet to gain a full appreciation of the nation’s debt, one must step back and take a wider view of the situation. Take for example personal debt. Many are now addressing credit card bills...

Growing up in New Castle, Pa., where every public school received extra federal support due to the city’s high poverty levels, I saw the importance of governmental assistance. New Castle Area School District, one of the poorest in Pennsylvania, relied on Title I to fund essential services like tutoring, after-school...

Polarized politics have led many Pennsylvanians to dark places, but could a common vision of justice for all illuminate the path to unity? A beacon of hope is a new declaration of principles endorsed by many of the nation’s most respected conservative and liberal groups. It encapsulates our shared aspirations...

Democrats are raising an alarm about what they call a “constitutional crisis.” If there is one, they should know because they are to blame for it. That’s because their party, since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, have been violating the boundaries and restrictions on government set forth in our founding...

The United States’ steadfast allegiance to Ukraine during that country’s three-year war against Russia appears to be quickly disintegrating under the Trump administration. President Donald Trump on Feb. 19, 2025, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator” and falsely blamed him for the war that Russia initiated as part of...

There is one surefire way to know when someone is trying to pull one over on you: If they’re promising something for nothing — like a tax cut that pays for itself or an investment strategy that offers a higher return and lower risk — then you need to be...

In just a few short weeks, the Trump administration has brought drastic changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and public health. Beginning with the removal of websites and key public health datasets in January, the Trump administration has taken actions to dismantle established public health infrastructure as...

Thanks in part to Black men, Pennsylvania’s political tectonics are shifting in ways that were unimaginable just a short time ago. In the 2024 presidential election, 24% of Pennsylvania’s Black men voted for President Trump. Given that 14% of Pennsylvania’s Black men voted for Trump in 2016, adding 10 points...

If you’ve ever been four-wheeling and got stuck in the mud, then you know it takes everyone getting out of the vehicle and working as a team — pushing and pulling — to get rolling again. It’s also like that with transportation funding. It’s really a fitting analogy, because that’s...

The opening month of the second Trump administration has been marked by incredible speed and progress, especially toward their goal of scaling back the bloat of the federal government. The pace has left an out-of-power Democratic Party reeling. Rather than propose their own spending cuts, most Democrats have decided to...

It wasn’t until after Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor, ended up in a Nazi concentration camp that he realized he should have done more to help Hitler’s victims. He saw what was happening but he never thought they’d come for him. Of course, they eventually did. And that’s what Americans...

In his 1951 farewell address to Congress and the American public (known as the “old soldiers never die, they just fade away” speech), Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur said something the Trump administration should recall as it seeks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine: “… once war is forced...

“Complicity In Genocide.” I would love to tell you I was shocked by the charge on the wanted poster with my face on it, but I wasn’t. It’s not the first time a radicalized, anti-Zionist, anti-Israel or antisemitic group has targeted me online. In fact, the same group — or...