Lori Falce Columns category, Page 3
Lori Falce: The bitter pill of an insurance CEO’s murder
On Wednesday, a man died — and a lot of people just didn’t care. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, was gunned down on a sidewalk as he approached the Hilton Midtown Manhattan hotel for an investors meeting, right between Rockefeller Center and Carnegie Hall. It was an early-morning ambush, and...
Lori Falce: Black Friday in the time of tariffs
The Meta Quest 3S virtual headset is prominently featured on the front of the Target Black Friday flyer. At Walmart, kids may be clamoring for the Hot Wheels hot deal. Kohl’s is cutting the price on Beats by Dr. Dre headphones in half and kicking in some Kohl’s Cash to...
Lori Falce: NomineeMania Smackdown 2025!
“Holy s—-! I didn’t see that coming!” That was the reaction of U.S. Sen. John Fetterman to Matt Gaetz withdrawing his name from consideration to become U.S Attorney General. It was also the reaction of many people when President-elect Donald Trump nominated Gaetz — who resigned from the House of...
Lori Falce: The sweet justice of The Onion buying Infowars
Sometimes justice isn’t something that can be delivered by the courts. A guilty verdict, for example, does not bring back a loved one. It doesn’t restore a reputation or rebuild a home. What it does is get as close to justice as the law can do after the fact. In...
Lori Falce: What makes America work is difference and unity
America has always relied heavily on the concept of union. It is literally what holds us together. The colonies would not have defeated the British if it was just Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and Virginia facing off individually. We would have been swarmed under the red-coated army of the 18th century...
Lori Falce: What did Jeff Bezos do wrong with lack of endorsement?
Buckle up. I’m about to castigate the third richest man in the world — for doing something I did, too. A week ago, the Washington Post released its endorsement for the U.S. presidential race. It picked neither Democrat Kamala Harris nor Republican Donald Trump. “We recognize that this will be...
Lori Falce: Lessons for Elon Musk from the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes
When I was a kid, I loved seeing the Publishers Clearing House envelope show up in the mailbox. I would open it and spread out the contents on the dining room table — stickers in this pile, cards in another, forms in a third. I would read the rules like...
Lori Falce: Make up your minds, undecided voters
Who do we have to thank for the constant drumbeat of the presidential campaigns in Pennsylvania right now? You might say the Democrats. You might blame the Republicans. They are a symptom, not the disease. What about the Electoral College? You’re not wrong. The unusual institution that acts as a...
Lori Falce: The dangerous spread of misinformation
The American Psychological Association has an entire section of its website dedicated to the dangers of misinformation and disinformation and how the not-so-slow creep into our daily lives is hurting us all. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also concerned. So is the Department of Health and Human...
Lori Falce: It’s exhausting being a swing state voter
I’m a little tired of being this important. That’s an understatement. I’m downright exhausted. I’m wrung out. I’m at my wit’s end. And I know that I am not alone. You’re tired, too, right? In Pennsylvania, we are accustomed to our perennial place in the landscape of presidential elections. We...
Lori Falce: Words hurt people every day
Rhetoric is all over the news right now. No, not the rhetoric itself, but the word “rhetoric” as people use rhetoric to discuss the concept of rhetoric. And if that seems confusing, that’s kind of the point. If you listen to politicians and pundits, the term rhetoric might be interpreted...
Lori Falce: America is a buffet. Don’t dish up racism
There is no cat in your fried rice. Despite decades of distrust and jokes, the chicken in your chicken lo mein is just chicken. When Bill Murray’s character in “Scrooged” warned his girlfriend about stray animals going into the chop suey, it was just another example of the fictional Frank...
Lori Falce: Too young for dangerous tools but old enough for gun violence
The back-to-school season always puts me in my feelings about what my son is old enough to do. I am well aware my baby is not my baby anymore. He looms over me by several inches, and I need him to get things off high shelves, which really drives that...
Lori Falce: What is the darkest corner of social media?
People are concerned about the creeping scourge of social media ruining society. They fear the walls of Facebook news. They fear the ugliness of X. They fear the unattainably curated beauty of Instagram. And then there’s the “is it spyware?” suspicion of a Chinese-owned TikTok. There are valid reasons to...
Lori Falce: Gus Walz was the real star of the Democratic National Convention
I was moved to tears Wednesday night as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz addressed the Democratic National Convention, accepting his place as the party’s vice-presidential nominee. It wasn’t by Walz’s words — though the Midwestern cadence and rhythm were as familiar as a lullaby to my own native Minnesotan ears. It...
Lori Falce: The American prisoner in Russia who desperately wants to be freed
On Wednesday, The New Yorker published a story about Ilya Yashin. “The Russian Prisoner Who Didn’t Want to be Freed,” it was titled. Yashin was part of the complex, multinational prisoner exchange that moved 26 people on Aug. 1, including Americans Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva. He is...
Lori Falce: ‘You won’t have to vote again.’ Really?
Every year — at least twice a year — I do something that newspapers, editors, pundits, nonprofit organizations and government officials have been doing for generations. I encourage people to vote. I do it before the Pennsylvania primary, generally in April or May, depending on whether it’s a presidential year...
Lori Falce: Do we call her Kamala or Harris?
Since President Joe Biden stepped out of the presidential race, first opening the door and then endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, there has been a segment of the population debating one critical question. Not the way the convention will work. Not who the running mate will be. What do we...
Lori Falce: Butler victims deserve better than conspiracy theories
The conspiracy theories come faster these days. There was a time that it took months or years for a good skeptical narrative to develop around major events. The apocrypha surrounding the Freemasons, for example, have been 400 years in the making. Flat Earth theories in the modern era can date...
Lori Falce: Why can UK and France move faster toward political change than U.S.?
America is a relatively young country. At just 248 years since announcing our debut as an independent nation with the Declaration of Independence, we are relative children on the world stage. Let’s look at the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — a good starting point for...
Lori Falce: Politics is infection in Supreme Court rulings
The U.S. Supreme Court has proved itself in this term to be something different than was intended. “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” That is Article...
Lori Falce: You can lead a county to Pride Month but you can’t make them proclaim it
We have often been told about the perils of leading horses to water. You might be able to push, pull, ride or haul your steed where you want it to go. You cannot ensure it will do what you want when you get there. Life has no guarantees, no matter...
Lori Falce: Louisiana and the lessons of the Ten Commandments
I went to a Catholic school. We prayed in class at the start of the day, before each class, before lunch, after lunch and at the end of the day. And that was just your random Monday. On a holy day of obligation or the first Friday of each month,...
Lori Falce: Bipartisan action shouldn’t be a Washington fairy tale
Once upon a time, in a country that seems all but forgotten, people identified important issues and did what needed to be done to accomplish change. It is amazing how much political history resembles fairy tales. This week, I spent quite a bit of time doing research on refugees, immigrants,...
Lori Falce: Prisoners held in Russia mirror hostages held in Iran
Americans held in a foreign country during a presidential election year. It’s a scenario that sounds familiar for a reason. In 1979, after the revolution overthrowing Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, hundreds of armed college students took the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It was a shocking event, with 66 Americans...
