Featured Commentary category, Page 57
Michael Reagan: Politicians’ brains are a nonpartisan issue
Seriously folks. Maybe we Republicans better stop banging on President Biden for the serious cognitive issues he obviously has. Unless we hold the players on our own team responsible for their cognitive issues, we have to stop harping on the obvious mental declines of Biden, Sen. John Fetterman and Diane...
Zach Kennedy: The Pittsburgh Pirates deserve better
A sea of overjoyed fans draped in black and gold as far as the eye could see was on its feet, pushing PNC Park to capacity on a crisp October afternoon. This was the atmosphere I faked a doctor’s appointment to enjoy during my sophomore year of high school in...
Cal Thomas: Getting the Saudi-Israel formula wrong
If one is mixing chemicals, getting the formula wrong can produce disastrous results. It is the same with international diplomacy. For decades the left was wrong about the Soviet Union and China, believing that what the U.S. did or did not do would have a positive influence on communist dictators...
Dietram A. Scheufele, Dominique Brossard and Todd Newman: Experts alone can’t handle AI; the public needs a seat at the table
Are democratic societies ready for a future in which AI algorithmically assigns limited supplies of respirators or hospital beds during pandemics? Or one in which AI fuels an arms race between disinformation creation and detection? Or sways court decisions with amicus briefs written to mimic the rhetorical and argumentative styles...
Stacy Garrity: Working to return $4.5 billion in unclaimed property
As state treasurer, one of my top priorities is returning unclaimed property to its rightful owners. Right now, the Pennsylvania Treasury Department is working to return more than $4.5 billion to hardworking people across the commonwealth. In fact, about one in 10 Pennsylvanians has money waiting. I encourage everyone to...
Bruce Cooper and Mark Reynolds: Congress, we have a problem — and it’s time for you to solve it
When it comes to climate change, sometimes it feels like we can’t see the forest for the trees — the smoldering, wildfire-ravaged trees. Public attention has been consumed this summer by shocking climate impacts. Acrid wildfire smoke has blighted skylines and polluted the air in nearly every region of the...
Greg Fulton: Russia’s insidious genocide in Ukraine
The Oxford Dictionary defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” Throughout history, the world has been slow to recognize or respond to genocide, and in some cases unwilling to...
Christopher Decker: Jobs are up, wages less so — and lower purchasing power could still lead the US into a recession
Don’t be overly fooled by recent seemingly rosy jobs data. Yes, the U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in August 2023 — faster than the revised 157,000 increase for July and above most analysts’ expectations for the month. And yes, gains were seen across most industries, with health care and social...
Barry C. Burden: Paper ballots are good, but accurately hand-counting them all is next to impossible
Among people, mostly Republicans, who remain the most suspicious of the 2020 presidential election results, there’s something of a movement to return to the days when election ballots in the United States were counted by hand. One 67,000-person county in Georgia recently required a hand count of all ballots, for...
Raymond Scheppach: Congress needs to pass 12 funding bills in 11 days to avert a shutdown — here’s why that isn’t likely
U.S. senators and representatives returning from their summer vacations will need to shake off their suntans in quick time and get down to business. Congress has just 11 days when it’s in session before the next federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 And in that time, it will need...
Elwood Watson: Jacksonville and the continued assault on Black people
As segments of the nation remembered the 60th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, we simultaneously witnessed another horrendous, senseless act of racially sadistic violence occur in Jacksonville, Fla. Armed with an AR-15 and a handgun decorated with a swastika, 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmiter carried out a racist mass...
Tom Pike: Leaders aren’t helpless and must take action on fracking
On Aug. 15, researchers with the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced they had found strong links between lymphoma and fracking, as well as asthma and fracking. Lymphoma was found to be 5-7 times as common in people who lived near fracking well pads as those...
Julie Su: Why I’m spending Labor Day in Pittsburgh
America is home to a strong and storied labor movement that has fought many battles to empower workers and protect the rights of hard-working families. That includes in the proud union town of Pittsburgh, where I’m marching today in one of the oldest and largest Labor Day parades in the...
Chris Kelly: Shapiro must rally rescue posse
Sometimes, spurring the cavalry to saddle up is a matter of poking the right rumps. In response to Lackawanna County Department of Health and Human Services Director Bill Browning’s desperate plea for help staffing his desolate Office of Youth and Family Services, state officials said consultants — free agents who...
Carl Kurlander: The WGA/SAG strike and 4 lessons from a steel town for the modern-day labor movement
With Labor Day approaching and the writers and actors strike continuing into the fall, I thought this might be a good time for a historical perspective on the modern-day labor movement. I write as someone whose oldest membership outside of the AAA is the Writers Guild of America (member of...
Peter Morici: How a third-party candidate with a sound economic program could win
A third-party candidate could win the presidency if the major parties offer voters a Biden-Trump rematch. In the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot managed only 19% of the vote. But the independent candidate was leading in a June Gallup poll shortly before he dropped out only to reenter the race...
John Tamny: Savers and financiers are economy’s lifeblood, so treat them well
In his memoirs about the remarkable rise of The Home Depot, the great Bernie Marcus oh-so-thankfully went against the grain of seemingly all modern thought in writing that “bankers put their careers on the line, and for that we protect them.” Amen. Bankers, investment bankers, VCs and other financial intermediaries...
Bruce Cooper and Mark Reynolds: Climate action has brought major investment, jobs to Pa. Lawmakers should strive for more
One year after a major climate bill was passed, Pennsylvania is flourishing thanks to an influx of clean energy investment and jobs. When the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law last August, it unleashed a stream of clean energy projects, with Gov. Josh Shapiro quickly taking the initiative...
Ron Klink: Congress cracks down on shady PBM middlemen — and not a moment too soon
Congress is considering more than half a dozen bills that’d curb the power of pharmacy benefit managers. The increased, bipartisan scrutiny of these rapacious drug supply chain middlemen is welcome. In fact, it’s overdue. For years, they’ve been inflating pharmaceutical prices and bilking patients while providing little value to the...
Nancy S. Jecker: There’s no age limit for politicians — as people live longer, should that change?
President Joe Biden was “fine,” according to White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt, after tripping over a sandbag at a U.S. Air Force graduation ceremony on June 1. But his fall was caught on live camera — and people on social media speculated about what was behind it. Biden, approaching...
Dr. A. Jay Gross: Fetterman’s fight for affordable health care
Ranked fifth in the country by its size of seniors, Pennsylvania is home to over 2.2 million older Americans. As the population of seniors grows 20 times faster than the state’s general population, it is more important than ever that Pennsylvania has representatives who advocate on behalf of seniors’ needs...
Bev-Freda Jackson: Mahalia Jackson’s suggestion during 1963 march resulted in majestic sermon on an American dream
Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson had one of them. Known around the world as the “Queen of Gospel,” Jackson used her powerful voice to work in the Civil Rights Movement. Starting in the 1950s, she traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South...
Vanessa Lynch: Clean air and a healthy climate can be Pa.’s future
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a “code orange” air quality alert for Western Pennsylvania last week, confirming what many of us already knew — there was something in the air. A cocktail of air pollution, heat and sunshine created unhealthy concentrations of ground-level ozone, also known as...
Andreas Kluth: If Prigozhin is gone, long live Putin — and Wagner?
Yevgeny Prigozhin might have retired in peace some day. Or he could have been found writhing in the throes of Novichok, a nerve agent favored by Russia’s spy agencies. He might also have fallen out of a window, crashed in his car or slipped in his bathroom — like so...
Judith Stepan-Norris and Jasmine Kerrissey: Strikes seem common, but number of Americans walking off job is historically low
More than 323,000 workers — including nurses, actors, screenwriters, hotel cleaners and restaurant servers — walked off their jobs during the first eight months of 2023. Hundreds of thousands of the employees of delivery giant UPS would have gone on strike, too, had they not reached a last-minute agreement. Nearly...
