Featured Commentary category, Page 104

The saying goes that children learn what they live. If children meet police under normal circumstances, they’ll be set for life. That’s because they’ll experience encounters that are positive. Encounters like school resource officers being there to assist students if there’s danger. Officers providing safety tips during school assemblies. DARE...

Nearly 2,000 deep shale gas wells have been drilled and fracked in Washington County. Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Department of Health held a public meeting at Canon-McMillan High School to defend its claim that there is no cancer cluster in our region. Twelve children and young adults have been...

At the first Democratic primary debate since the American political landscape tectonically shifted, it’s no surprise the potential impeachment of President Trump was a significant focus of the night. How, why and when Trump should be impeached drew creative and passionate responses from the people vying for his job. It...

What do novelist Toni Morrison, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, basketball coach John Thompson, gymnast Simone Biles and acclaimed Pittsburgh jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams all have in common? If you guessed they’re black, you’ve got it half right. The correct answer is that they, together with approximately 3 million...

If you need an accurate update on some of the madness at the nation’s institutions of higher learning, check out Minding the Campus, a nonprofit independent organization. John Leo, its editor-in-chief, says that the organization’s prime mission is dedicated to the revival of intellectual pluralism and the best traditions of...

The media keep telling us: There’s no difference between male and female brains. I don’t believe it. Many of you must be skeptical, too. Nonetheless, people now fill auditoriums to hear neuroscientist Gina Rippon talk about her new book that claims “New Neuroscience Explodes the Myths of the Male and...

There’s no shortage of arguments offered up for preventing citizens of a liberal democracy, such as the United States, from trading freely with the subjects of an authoritarian state, such as China. Many of these arguments reflect merely an ignorance of Econ 101. It isn’t true, for example, that low-wage...

The City of Pittsburgh should expedite the sale of city-owned property by injecting the marketplace into the process, says a new white paper by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Property could move more rapidly from the city to the general public though an auction,” says Eric Montarti, research director....

Media coverage of possible presidential impeachment dominates the news today as few issues in recent memory. Yet, the constitutional framework that controls impeachment (scattered throughout Articles I, II and III), is little understood by even normally informed Americans. An ancient practice derived from English common law, impeachment was incorporated into...

“There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader,” is a remark attributed to a French politician during the turbulent times of 1848. Joe Biden’s declaration last Wednesday that President Trump should be impeached is in that tradition. Joe is scrambling to get out in front...

The most xenophobic and isolationist American president in modern history has been selling America to foreign powers for his personal benefit. Donald Trump says he withdrew American troops from the Syrian-Turkish border — leaving our Kurdish allies to be slaughtered and opening the way for a resurgent ISIS — because...

In response to news reports Oct. 6 that at least one additional administration whistleblower has come forward to say what he or she knows about President Trump’s Ukrainian schemes, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted, “I’ve seen this movie before — with Brett Kavanaugh. More and more doesn’t mean better...

Back in 2011, the embers of the Syrian war sparked in the southwestern town of Daraa in a siege by the Assad regime’s Syrian Army that resulted in the deaths of up to 240 civilians, many of them children. Eight years later, you’re forgiven if you’ve forgotten why that war...

Recent attacks on private equity funds have unwisely focused on a retirement fund for Pennsylvania’s Public School Employees (PSERS). Those unfounded criticisms intentionally ignore important facts — including how private equity investment consistently delivers the strongest returns for Pennsylvania retirees’ pensions. Apparently, those who disparage PSERS investments place a higher...

The history books tell us that slavery officially ended in the United States on Dec. 6, 1865, when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. However, the prevalence of human trafficking cases across the country tells us that slavery lives on. In fact, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security...

President Trump just announced a major immigration reform package that’s certain to disappoint his staunchest supporters. The plan, which was largely designed by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, would maintain the current, historically high level of legal immigration. That’s a reversal from Trump’s campaign-trail promise to scale back legal migration....

As the Pennsylvania General Assembly heads back to Harrisburg to take up the commonwealth’s business, a priority for their fall agenda should be passing Senate Bill 300. This proposal would enable Pennsylvania’s unaffiliated voters to have a voice in casting votes in either the Republican or Democrat ballot on primary...

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has published a new paper, “Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.” Keep in mind that many of the grossly wrong environmentalist predictions were made by respected scientists and government officials. My question for you is: If you were around at the time, how many...

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is controversial within her party. She says the U.S. should talk to its enemies. She was criticized for meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. But Democrats were supposed to be the anti-war party. “They’re heavily influenced by a foreign policy establishment … whose whole...

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as food stamps, is the most important anti-hunger program in the country. It helps more than 1.8 million of our fellow Pennsylvanians — our friends, neighbors and family members — put food on their tables. Those who rely on SNAP in Pennsylvania...

The explosion of “vaping” myriads of flavors and substances has quickly led to life-threatening disease and death in young people. A brief description of how our body staves off toxins shows why this recent outbreak was predictable. All life forms live in a world of toxins — mostly invisible stuff...

“Who lost China?” With the fall of the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, the defeat of his armies and the flight to Formosa, that was the question of the hour in 1949. And no one demanded to know more insistently than the anti-Communist Congressman John F. Kennedy: Tragic indeed was...

Before its eradication in the U.S., polio affected millions. I should know; I am one of them. After founding the Pennsylvania Polio Survivors Network (PPSN), I have been reminded every day of the fear that existed before this terrible virus met its match in Jonas Salk’s famous vaccine. It came...

Is President Trump going to get Joe Biden elected? Opinions vary widely on how to characterize Trump’s now-infamous conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The president believes it was “perfect” and “beautiful.” In the middle are those who think it was bad and improper or perhaps impeachable but not necessarily...

Back when reruns were a staple of summer programming, television networks aired repeats of their programs, giving viewers another opportunity to see what they had already seen. Democratic politicians are now conducting their own version of reruns. The same bunch who brought us the failed Russian “collusion” story, the sliming...