Featured Commentary category, Page 102

When the wildfires of California broke out across the Golden State, many were the causes given. Negligence by campers. Falling power lines. Arson. A dried-out land. Climate change. Failure to manage forests, prune trees and clear debris, leaving fuel for blazes ignited. Abnormally high winds spreading the flames. Too many...

Quite often, even before we awake each morning, it begins to happen: The guideposts that define our behaviors and interactions start to present themselves. Alarms, schedules, tasks, timelines, speed limits, job descriptions, appointments, etc. — many typical expectations and dos and don’ts provide the external boundaries for our internal conduct...

Forget whether the math works. (It doesn’t.) Expecting billionaires to pay for all the nice things is bad for democracy. One of the more exhausting rituals of presidential campaign season is the effort to make every new proposal “add up.” Sure, it’s better that politicians try to come up with...

At a time when politics has become less and less about governing and increasingly, well, about politics, last week is perhaps the penultimate illustration. Last week the testimony began in President Trump’s impeachment inquiry, and the nation is watching as members of Congress from both sides of the aisle perform...

According to experts — and a famous ratio — 90% of how we learn is considered informal learning. That’s because 70% of how we learn is from experience and 20% is from peers. The other 10% is through self-directed learning. Add it all up and you have the 70:20:10 ratio,...

Shortly after Jim Bakker’s release from prison in July 1994, I invited the disgraced TV evangelist to my home. There was an important question I wanted to ask him. Some background: Bakker and his “Praise the Lord” (PTL) associates sold $1,000 “lifetime memberships” to people who were promised annual three-night...

Governments create problems. Then they complain about them. “A public health crisis exists,” says Kentucky’s government, citing a report that found “a shortage of ambulance providers.” Local TV stations report on “people waiting hours for medical transportation.” “Six-year-old Kyler Truesdell fell off his motorcycle,” reported Channel 12 news. “The local...

A recent survey conducted by the Victims of Communism and polled by YouGov, a research and data firm, found that 70% of millennials are likely to vote socialist and that one in three millennials saw communism as “favorable.” Let examine this tragic vision in light of the Fraser Institute’s recently...

Nurse practitioners have been pushing state lawmakers to remove their collaborative agreements with physicians in Pennsylvania for a number of years. But a new public opinion poll should give state lawmakers in Allegheny County pause, as the vast majority of participants indicated they would not support such a move. Susquehanna...

Pennsylvania educates more PA (physician assistant) students than almost any other state. With one of the highest numbers of accredited PA programs in the country — 23, to be exact — our state has access to an enormous group of bright, ambitious, well-trained medical providers who can help to improve...

After celebrating last week’s takeover of Virginia’s legislature and the Kentucky governorship, the liberal establishment appears poised to crush its biggest threat: the surging candidacy of Elizabeth Warren. From the tempo and tenor of the attacks, establishment fears of Warren’s success are real — and understandably so. The danger for...

When was the last time that you unfolded a map for directions before a road trip or required a postage stamp to send a photograph to a friend? More likely than not, you have turned to a phone, tablet or other device to complete these simple tasks. In the 21st...

Culturally, Elizabeth Warren is a lot more like Donald Trump than you might think. Hold on. I know: Going by their personal lives, their demeanors and their ideological agendas, they’re apples and oranges. But apples and oranges actually have a lot in common: They’re both fruits, they’re round, and they...

While Democrats are celebrating a number of significant local electoral victories in unlikely places, Republicans are left struggling to keep the political shrapnel from grazing their cult commander, President Trump. And not doing it particularly well, either. Don Trump Jr. was on Fox News Tuesday night working hard to insist...

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” was the admonition of Sir Walter Scott in his 1808 poem “Marmion.” Change the word “deceive” to “intercede,” and the quote becomes most apropos to describe Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to increase the threshold for which...

I proudly served my country for 10 years in the Army, first with the field artillery and later as a helicopter pilot, serving two tours in Iraq. I come from a family with a long military history, and I am proud to have put my life on the line to...

The Democratic primary campaign started in January, but it already feels as if it began in the late Jurassic period, and the first votes are still three months away. Primaries are a lot like Christmas: The shopping season begins way before, and things rarely live up to expectations. (I mean...

Raids, like Operation Kayla — named for murdered humanitarian aid worker Kayla Mueller — resulting in the death of Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi and other ISIS terrorist leaders, are usually small affairs with limited results. Nevertheless, such meticulously planned and superbly executed raids also can have significant strategic implications. Roughly five decades...

Pennsylvania was once known as “the steel capital of the world.” We have grown and diversified beyond that distinction some time ago, but steel remains a sizable component of the commonwealth’s economy. More than 30,000 workers are directly employed in the industry, producing more than $20 billion in economic output....

Jews have been awarded 40% of the Nobel Prizes in economics, 30% of those in medicine, 25% in physics, 20% in chemistry, 15% in literature and 10% of the Nobel Peace Prizes. Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been just over 900 Nobel Prizes awarded. Since Jews...

House members summoned Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to Washington, D.C., and grilled him — harshly — about his plan to create a new currency, Libra. I liked it when Zuckerberg said, “I actually don’t know if Libra’s going to work, but I believe that it’s important to try new things.” He...

With Thanksgiving just a fortnight away, tables across America will soon be teeming with turkey and all the trimmings — and the potential for Americans to overindulge. At the same time, millions of those same people are trying to be more mindful about their overall nutrition, including snacking. In fact,...

On the night of Oct. 26-27, the caliph (commander) of the Islamic State (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, died in a U.S. raid on his compound in Idlib, Syria. The leader of the deadliest terrorist group in history is dead. Now what? For months, experts have warned against the notion that...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed one of the most ambitious health care reforms since the Affordable Care Act. She hopes her plan, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, will reduce the “out of control” prices that are “crushing Americans at the pharmacy counter.” I served four terms in Congress...

What are the roots of our present disorder, of the hostilities and hatreds that so divide us? When did we become this us vs. them nation? Many trace the roots of our uncivil social conflict to the 1960s and the Johnson years when LBJ, victorious in a 61% landslide in...