Joseph Sabino Mistick Columns category, Page 6
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Wray hits back at FBI weaponization accusations
Only in an upside-down world would the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee accuse conservative Republican FBI Director Christopher Wray of weaponizing the Justice Department against conservative Republicans. But that is what happened last week. Wray testified for five hours before the committee, spending most of his time discrediting and fending off...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Ethics hypocrisy of the Supreme Court
If you don’t have the stomach for more hypocrisy in government and politics these days, stay away from the plight of New Jersey Superior Court Judge Gary N. Wilcox versus the impunity with which United States Supreme Court justices operate. Wilcox is facing judicial ethics charges for posting 40 TikTok...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Chris Christie, the truth-teller
The “Calumny of Apelles” is a famous 15th-century painting by Sandro Botticelli that depicts the isolation of a truth teller. The painting shows nine figures, with the unadorned Truth at the far left. On the far right is the king, the decider, seated on an elevated throne. And separating the...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Tired of the taunting used to dodge truth
As his legal problems mount, Donald Trump and his loyalists are falling back on some decades-old smears and insults to attack those who they want us to believe are behind Trump’s troubles. As reported in the Tribune-Review last week, they are calling President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats “communists”...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Happy Father’s Day, George Washington
As we get ready to honor our own fathers, especially after a week like the last one, Father’s Day 2023 seems like a good time to remember “The Father of Our Country,” George Washington. This past Tuesday, former president Donald Trump was arraigned in federal court on 37 criminal charges...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: America learns from tough times
On June 5, much of the media covered the 55th anniversary of the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who was running for the Democratic nomination for president when he was killed. If you were around then, it was the latest bad news in a decade of bad news....
Joseph Sabino Mistick: DeSantis could learn a few lessons from our valleys
Whatever lessons presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took from his youthful connection to Western Pennsylvania, there are some things he seems to have missed or forgotten. DeSantis said in his recent memoir, “I was geographically raised in Tampa Bay, but culturally my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Winds of change in Pittsburgh, Philly
It was a tale of two Democratic cities on primary election night in Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia, Democrats nominated Cherelle Parker to be their party’s nominee for mayor. In Pittsburgh, Sara Innamorato was the winner of the Democratic Party’s nomination for Allegheny County executive. Those offices are widely seen as the...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: The new politics nothing like the old
They’re gonna dance with the ones that brung ‘em. That is still true in politics. And it is a good thing in terms of the currency of human relationships — loyalty, gratitude, friendship — as long as it does not get in the way of the job for which a...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Becoming American more difficult than ever
Chaos on our southern border and the failure of our immigration policies are leading the news again. The crisis is getting worse with the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era immigration provision that enabled the government to quickly turn people away at the border. It is a human disaster on...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Gainey should be at the head of the table
In a series of reports on KDKA-TV News, investigative reporter Andy Sheehan has asked city officials this question: Who is running the City of Pittsburgh? The elected mayor or officials of SEIU Healthcare, the union that is credited by many with getting him elected, spending $350,000 to support his campaign?...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Dishonoring America’s heroes
“They’re slitting their own throats and throwing themselves overboard” is how an old pal and management consultant once described the self-destructive actions of an organization he was asked to evaluate. The nonprofit was imploding, turning in on itself, like a ship full of mad pirates. If you ask the nation’s...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Will Fox’s big payout bring any changes?
If you were looking for Fox News to beat its chest and say “mea culpa” as part of the settlement last week with Dominion Voting Systems, you were probably disappointed. But for many people, there is some comfort in the $787.5 million that Fox agreed to pay Dominion. Dominion’s lawyers...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Troubles in Tennessee
Political careers can turn on a dime, as the sudden fate of two Tennessee state legislators proved when they were expelled from the state House of Representatives. Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis, both Democrats and both Black, were stripped of their elected positions by a...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: DeSantis and book banners can’t change history
The recent move by Florida Democrats to ban Gov. Ron DeSantis’ memoir, “The Courage To Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” raises issues that are more important than the few chuckles it warrants. DeSantis has promoted laws banning books on race, diversity and gender, limiting teachers’ ability to discuss...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Facing the truth about our dead children
When 14-year-old Emmett Till was savagely beaten and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after rumors spread that he had whistled at a white woman, his death would have been little noticed but for his mother’s decision to show the world what had been done to her son. Mamie Till Mobley...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: For Ukraine, the good fight
Fight night on Pittsburgh’s North Side was in the final hours of St. Patrick’s Day. There was a packed house at the Grand Hall of the Priory to watch a six-bout card of prizefighters, some local and others from out of town. And it turned out to be much more...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: DeSantis is no Reagan
Why are so many big politicians acting so small? There are plenty of opportunities for them to think big and act big, but lately some politicians are stuck on those things that will grab some headlines but have little to do with the future of America. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Gainey still has time to make Pittsburgh safer
Just as Pittsburgh weather comes from the west and often through Chicago, local political watchers are wondering what the defeat of first-term Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot could mean for Pittsburgh and the reelection of Mayor Ed Gainey in 2025. Lightfoot, the first incumbent Chicago mayor in 40 years not to...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Poland knows about freedom
In the 1950s, the Allegheny County Democratic Party held summer picnics at Pulaski Grove, a long-forgotten wooded patch that carried the name of Casimir Pulaski, a Polish freedom fighter and hero of the American Revolution. The Democratic Party represented everybody, and the picnics were rare and treasured outings for blue-collar...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: In East Palestine and beyond, a familiar story
To many residents, it looked like the end of the world when 50 cars from a 150-car Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, just over three weeks ago. Eleven of the derailed cars carried toxic chemicals and were scattered along the tracks smoking and burning. Thousands of fish...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Armstrong County welcome mat rolled up
When Chuck Pascal and the Armstrong County Democratic Committee decided to place a billboard with a welcoming message along one of the main roads into the county, they chose words that they hoped would reach and comfort as many people as possible. Pascal, the county Democratic chairman and a prominent...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Biden steps forward into the fight
I don’t have the wildest idea what the ultimate impact of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech will be. I don’t know if the public will be more persuaded that things are going OK or if they will think that we are on the wrong path. I can’t...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Our real Groundhog Day, an endless loop of tragedy
Another Groundhog Day has come and gone. It was started by German immigrants in Pennsylvania in 1887 in Punxsutawney. Historians say it is based on a pre-Christian ritual that used the behavior of small animals to predict the weather, back when believing that you could predict the start of spring...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Can we save Downtown Pittsburgh?
People are worried about Downtown Pittsburgh. The recent daytime killing of a young man in broad daylight in the heart of Pittsburgh’s business and entertainment district has some businesses and residents worrying that Downtown might be over. It was the latest in a string of violent encounters and brazen shootings...
