Featured Commentary category, Page 103

Before Ellis Island was a museum that hosted tourists and middle-school field trips, it was a gateway to America for thousands upon thousands of hopeful immigrants — and the site of intense question-and-answer sessions. These early 1900s interviews included some fairly straightforward questions: What country are you from? What is...

In l’affaire Ukraine, the president is guilty as charged. And the best strategy for him to avoid impeachment by the House and perhaps even removal by the Senate is to admit it, apologize and let voters make their own judgment. It’s also the best way to fend off a disaster...

President Trump’s October 2017 national declaration to combat widespread deaths related to opioid abuse promised swift and pragmatic solutions. After all, drug overdoses killed a record-breaking 72,300 Americans during 2017, a 10% increase from 2016. This equates to more than the yearly death tolls from HIV, car crashes and gun...

Trying to keep up with the ever-changing positions of President Trump’s loyalists is hard work. Last week, Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade, Fox News guest John Yoo, CNN contributor Sean Duffy and others suggested that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukrainian-born American, war hero and Purple Heart...

In the snows of New Hampshire, yet another American president could emerge pledging to fix Washington — the political gridlock and the pervasive influence of “evil” special interests and K Street lobbyists. And relieve the worst burdens on middle class prosperity — skyrocketing health care costs, tuition and student debt,...

A significantly lower percentage of young men are now obtaining college degrees compared to women. We have known this for some time now. As Jon Birger pointed out in his 2015 book “Date-onomics,” , and as the mass media trumpeted widely, among Americans in their 20s with college degrees, women...

Four years ago, the media were talking about a “Libertarian Moment.” I had high hopes! Sen. Rand Paul ran for president, promising to “take our country back from special interests.” But his campaign never took off. He “shouldn’t even be on the stage,” said Donald Trump at a Republican presidential...

On Nov. 5, voters in Pennsylvania will face an important choice: whether or not to approve an amendment to the state Constitution. The benign title of the legislation, the Pennsylvania Marsy’s Law Crime Victims Rights Amendment, belies the dangerous language contained within the measure. Pennsylvania voters from across the political...

Gun control did not become politically acceptable until the Gun Control Act of 1968 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law’s primary focus was to regulate commerce in firearms by prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers and importers. Today’s gun-control advocates have gone much...

He was the Bernie Sanders of his day. Charlie Chaplin, the iconic actor and at the time a well-known political leftist (some said communist), delivered a speech in San Francisco in 1941 prior to America’s entry into World War II. As recounted in the biography of her parents, actress Fay...

“Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand,” said President Trump in an impassioned defense of his decision to cut ties to the Syrian Kurds, withdraw and end these “endless wars.” Are our troops in Syria, then, on their way home? Well, not exactly. Those leaving northern Syria went...

Pennsylvania has an opportunity to expand access to health care for thousands of its residents through legislation now before the House of Representatives’ Professional Licensure Committee. Senate Bill 25, which gives nurse practitioners full practice authority by removing a mandate that requires a collaborative agreement with two physicians, passed the...

The impeachment drama is already a three-ring circus, with a full complement of clowns to the left and the right. I want to focus on one detail that hasn’t gotten enough attention: the “missing” DNC server that President Trump believes might be in Ukraine. If you’ve paid any attention to...

Donald Trump has been president for nearly three years. He’s been on Twitter for more than 10. Yet the only thing more surprising than his increasingly awful, hideously unpresidential, deeply divisive tweets is that we still manage to be surprised by them. The latest, in which he called the impeachment...

President Trump has had (what else?) a publicly tempestuous relationship with the Federal Reserve System. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has adhered to the Fed’s official traditional position of being apolitical. Typical of Powell’s statements is the unequivocal assertion that “olitical considerations play no role whatsoever in our discussions or decisions...

One year ago a man armed with assault-style weapons and fueled by anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and white nationalist hatred attacked our synagogue. He murdered 11 innocent people and seriously injured two worshipers and four dedicated Pittsburgh police officers. Our community has been changed irrevocably. All of us have been harmed, though...

Millions of Pennsylvanians are paying for an outdated vehicle emissions testing program in counties that already meet federal air quality standards. As chair of the Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee, I believe the time to change that is long overdue. Pennsylvania’s federally sanctioned Vehicle Emissions Inspection and Maintenance (I/M) program requires...

Student loan debt keeps growing. There is a better solution than the ones politicians offer, which stick the taxpayer or the loan lenders with the whole bill. It’s called an income share agreement (ISA). Investors give money to a college, and the college then gives a free or partially free...

Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General William Barr told a University of Notre Dame Law School audience that attacks on religious liberty have contributed to a moral decline that’s in part manifested by increases in suicides, mental illness and drug addiction. Barr said that our moral decline is not random...

On Oct. 27, 2018, a gunman entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh and shot 11 people dead while they were worshipping. Almost a year later, Jews from that same synagogue enter Pittsburgh’s Calvary Episcopal Church to celebrate the High Holy Days. They come from Tree of Life-Or L’Smicha, one of three...

“Integrity lowers the price of capital.” An extremely successful investor once told me that. The context at the time was Donald Trump’s impending takeover of the GOP. This person meant it as an investment rule, an insight into Trump and a life lesson. The investment part is easy. Say you...

Pennsylvanians are realizing more than $2,000 in annual home energy savings; Ohio’s air quality progress is accelerating faster than the national average; and West Virginia experienced the country’s highest economic growth rate earlier this year. This economic and environmental success across the broader tri-state region is being enabled by the...

“Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East,” proclaimed Britain’s Telegraph. The article began: “Russia’s status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the US.” Yes, Putin has played his hand skillfully....

In one sense, the Syria debacle is a singular moment in the Trump presidency, and arguably in American history. I can’t think of another momentous decision by a commander-in-chief that was instantly recognizable as a disaster for which the president was entirely to blame. Even if you think the Iraq...

A new wrestling league is being promoted during TV coverage of Major League Baseball’s post-season. The ad promises more action, more spectacle and includes women as well as men grappling with each other. I have two candidates for their consideration: Hillary Clinton and presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii. Last...