Featured Commentary category, Page 107

Go ahead and forgive yourself if you find some details of Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Ireland confusing. Although Pence has official meetings in Dublin (on Ireland’s east coast) he and his federal entourage have found lodging in Doonbeg (on Ireland’s west coast). Why Doonbeg? Well, Pence has ancestral...

It’s not every day that ordinary Pennsylvanians willingly disrupt their lives to stand up for their constitutional rights. Even rarer is achieving an impact that affects thousands of people in just a few short months. But that’s exactly what three Greensburg state employees accomplished this year. Megan James, William Lester...

President Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran after the shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone, to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a U.S. war with Iran. But the same cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu. On Aug. 21, Israel launched a night attack on a village south...

Gov. Tom Wolf recently proposed a series of so-called reforms to Pennsylvania’s Charter School Law. He asserts that it is one of the worst in the nation. If you look at the law from the perspective of high cost and failing school districts, he may be right. Charter schools, which...

During our busy lives, there are few chances to step back and take in the big picture of the momentum built by America’s workforce. On this 125th Labor Day, we can point out historic achievements and positive impacts that continue across the labor market. The Department of Labor’s Bureau of...

Kids love playing musical chairs. Around they go, and when the music stops, someone has a seat, and someone is standing. But Pennsylvania parents and employers are playing a real-life game of musical chairs, with devastating consequences. Nearly half of Pennsylvania families work in fields demanding evening, night-time and weekend...

I have worked as a licensed clinical social worker in the health/mental health field in a variety of settings for 40 years. Hopefully, with age has come some wisdom I would like to share. The “dirty little secret” no one will talk about is this: There is no successful mental...

Cheswick Borough and Springdale Township have joined forces to form Allegheny County’s second regional police force. And if the conclusions of a state study that led to the creation of the Allegheny Valley Regional Police Department come to fruition, it could be an operational and financial win-win for local taxpayers,...

When members of Congress return from their August recess, they’ll face one of the most important decisions of their political careers — whether to ratify President Trump’s new trade deal with Canada and Mexico. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) isn’t perfect, but it’s far better than NAFTA, the pact which...

The New York Times has begun a major initiative, the “1619 Project,” to observe the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe American history so that slavery and the contributions of black Americans explain who we are as a nation. Nikole Hannah-Jones, staff writer for...

Why does most of Africa stay poor while other parts of the world prosper? People blame things like climate, the history of colonialism, racism, etc. But I say Senegalese businesswoman Magatte Wade gives the right explanation: too many rules. “Once you hire someone, good luck getting rid of them for...

A new government report found that although naloxone prescriptions have increased substantially in recent years, prescription rates are still too low. Naloxone, a drug that temporarily reverses the effects of opioids, can help prevent overdose deaths and should be prescribed with all high-dose opioid prescriptions. According to the Centers for...

More than 12 years ago, my future son-in-law confidently posed this question to me: “What is your worldview?” What followed was a discussion/debate about a wide-ranging set of principles — religion, politics, finances, values and the importance of family. While there was agreement on most of these topics, on others...

Is it possible the U.S. economy can successfully transition to a clean energy foundation without top-down legislative reform effort from Congress? Three market-based approaches would seed and speed the process at the local, micro-economic level and lay groundwork for far-reaching effects in U.S. energy policy: 1. Suspend for three years...

San Francisco, a city described in song for its natural beauty, is descending into an abyss of homelessness, the use of sidewalks as toilets and a place you might not want to visit, much less live. The latest, but surely not the last demonstration of insanity, is San Francisco’s Board...

Earlier this month, President Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S. withdrawal from America’s longest war. U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has...

Here’s a crazy idea: Maybe the forces of liberty will win. Sadly, few people are rooting for liberty these days, and even among those who are, there’s a dismaying amount of pessimism about its prospects. Consider China. There’s a new bipartisan consensus these days: The “elites” made a “bad bet”...

During a December 2015 debate among Republican presidential candidates in Las Vegas, former Florida governor Jeb Bush said to Donald Trump: “You can’t insult your way to the presidency.” Never mind. The question for next year’s election is whether the insulter-in-chief can use the same tactic to win a second...

We use anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 of the 171,476 basic words that make up the English language. Language entertains us. We use it to share joy, to express anger, to influence, to appreciate, or just to enjoy an idle chat. Words are like food; we need them to live....

Among the many consequences of Donald Trump’s ascendancy in modern American politics is a renewed and deepened hostility for the press, not only among his far-right base, but within the general electorate. In recent decades, trust in media has plummeted from a high of 72% who had a great deal...

The U.S. economy is delivering bad news to the White House. Second-quarter growth was only 2.1% and is not likely to return to 3% on a sustained basis. Significant wage increases, booming corporate profits, and double-digit stock grains SPX, -1.22% are not likely in the months leading up to the...

For many parents, August is a month of both pride and tears. Pride because their teenager is taking that big educational step and tears because for many it’s the beginning of an empty nest. Yet, there’s a going-away-to-college question that far too few parents ask or even contemplate: What will...

President Trump promised he’d get rid of bad rules. “Remove the anchor dragging us down!” he said when campaigning for president. “We’re going to cancel every needless job-killing regulation!” Trump was a developer, so he knew that the thicket of rules government imposes often makes it impossible to get things...

The Trump administration is planning one of the biggest changes to Medicare in decades. The draft rule would effectively bring socialist drug price controls to the United States. The change would threaten patients’ health and discourage companies from funding experimental treatments for deadly diseases. The rule impacts Medicare Part B,...

President Trump’s reelection hopes hinge on two things: the state of the economy in 2020 and the identity of the Democratic nominee. The further left the Democrats go to select their candidate, the greater the probability Trump wins a second term. Thus Trump got good news last week. The verbal...