Featured Commentary category, Page 28

With Labor Day approaching and the writers and actors strike continuing into the fall, I thought this might be a good time for a historical perspective on the modern-day labor movement. I write as someone whose oldest membership outside of the AAA is the Writers Guild of America (member of...

A third-party candidate could win the presidency if the major parties offer voters a Biden-Trump rematch. In the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot managed only 19% of the vote. But the independent candidate was leading in a June Gallup poll shortly before he dropped out only to reenter the race...

In his memoirs about the remarkable rise of The Home Depot, the great Bernie Marcus oh-so-thankfully went against the grain of seemingly all modern thought in writing that “bankers put their careers on the line, and for that we protect them.” Amen. Bankers, investment bankers, VCs and other financial intermediaries...

One year after a major climate bill was passed, Pennsylvania is flourishing thanks to an influx of clean energy investment and jobs. When the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law last August, it unleashed a stream of clean energy projects, with Gov. Josh Shapiro quickly taking the initiative...

Congress is considering more than half a dozen bills that’d curb the power of pharmacy benefit managers. The increased, bipartisan scrutiny of these rapacious drug supply chain middlemen is welcome. In fact, it’s overdue. For years, they’ve been inflating pharmaceutical prices and bilking patients while providing little value to the...

President Joe Biden was “fine,” according to White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt, after tripping over a sandbag at a U.S. Air Force graduation ceremony on June 1. But his fall was caught on live camera — and people on social media speculated about what was behind it. Biden, approaching...

Ranked fifth in the country by its size of seniors, Pennsylvania is home to over 2.2 million older Americans. As the population of seniors grows 20 times faster than the state’s general population, it is more important than ever that Pennsylvania has representatives who advocate on behalf of seniors’ needs...

Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson had one of them. Known around the world as the “Queen of Gospel,” Jackson used her powerful voice to work in the Civil Rights Movement. Starting in the 1950s, she traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South...

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a “code orange” air quality alert for Western Pennsylvania last week, confirming what many of us already knew — there was something in the air. A cocktail of air pollution, heat and sunshine created unhealthy concentrations of ground-level ozone, also known as...

Yevgeny Prigozhin might have retired in peace some day. Or he could have been found writhing in the throes of Novichok, a nerve agent favored by Russia’s spy agencies. He might also have fallen out of a window, crashed in his car or slipped in his bathroom — like so...

More than 323,000 workers — including nurses, actors, screenwriters, hotel cleaners and restaurant servers — walked off their jobs during the first eight months of 2023. Hundreds of thousands of the employees of delivery giant UPS would have gone on strike, too, had they not reached a last-minute agreement. Nearly...

It is fair to wonder how the other Republican candidates for president can catch up to Donald Trump. What is their plan to beat someone with a 30-plus point lead in the polls and who’s been using his many arrests the way the Super Mario Brothers use red mushrooms —...

Freedom must be championed and defended every day. Otherwise, the quest for power will eventually overwhelm us. Freedom cannot be without limits, or again, the quest for power will intrude and ruin. We have freedom of speech but, one may not yell “fire” in a crowded theater. One may not...

Ask most Westmoreland County residents about the fourth week of May this year, and they’ll tell you it was just like any other. The Pirates hosted the Rangers for a three-game homestand. Students and relatives started to trickle in from out of town for Memorial Day. But it was anything...

President Biden’s industrial and trade policies are terribly controversial. Economists, pundits and the media — on the left and right — complain these will promote inefficiency and won’t address fundamental disadvantages — for example, shortages of engineers and similar workers with advanced training. Allies in Europe criticize that the Buy...

After this past week, I feel dented. Last Saturday, my wife and I enjoyed dinner at a place in the Philadelphia suburbs. When the check arrived, I realized our waitress had confused our tab with the next table’s. When I walked inside to correct it, I noted there was a...

Recent and expected Supreme Court rulings regarding the authority of federal regulators have put the regulatory bureaucracy in the spotlight. Too many of them have the power to make or break industries. Some, like the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), are begging to have their wings clipped. Its mission is...

Wednesday night’s GOP primary debate in Milwaukee for the Republican candidates for the presidency will be more a Q&A session than a classic debate, but that’s OK. Viewers will have a chance to take the measure of the men — and woman — who wish to become president. Each candidate...

I was in a Western Pennsylvania grocery store recently and the owner detailed to me all the renovations he is making to his business and the health insurance he is able to provide for his employees. Having this type of conversation is not unusual for me. I am part of...

The world is on fire. The devastating wildfires in Maui have led to over 100 deaths, with many hundreds more people unaccounted for and injured. We have seen homes and livelihoods destroyed and hospitals overwhelmed with smoke and burn victims. These wildfires, fanned by winds from Hurricane Dora after years...

The power of incumbency in politics used to be near absolute at the congressional level. Once elected, the job was, in a sense, yours for life. That was true until 1994. It was then that House Speaker Tom Foley was put out to the political pasture. This was earthshaking news...

What nominee would bet on the proposition that the presidential debates don’t matter and then choose not to prepare? Jimmy Carter’s desultory prep in 1980, combined with Ronald Reagan’s reassuring and masterful performance — “There you go again” — arguably turned a close election into a landslide that reshaped American...

Televised presidential debates during the general election are viewed as the ultimate candidate showcase. They give voters the opportunity to watch competing worldviews and policy positions clash on America’s most significant political stage. Viewers get to test their assumptions about the candidates in real time. Voters want to know how...

Pennsylvania ranks in the top 10 for military veterans, meaning that the multifaceted and unique challenges that face these men and women are especially present in the Keystone State. Most glaring is the understood yet still lingering tragedy that the suicide rate among veterans is significantly higher than the civilian...

An estimated 3 million miles of natural gas pipelines crisscross the U.S. When these pipelines leak, harmful pollutants are released that threaten our communities’ safety, exacerbate the climate crisis, and result in the loss and waste of a taxable public resource. And, as is often the case when it comes...