Featured Commentary category, Page 52

It isn’t every day you hear a candidate for office say, “Hey, let’s cut public school funding by billions, lay off a ton of teachers, and send class sizes through the roof.” Yet that’s what state Sen. Doug Mastriano wants to do if elected governor in November, even if he...

As a university president, I am all too familiar with the headlines and stories that paint a grim future for higher education. The demise of traditional four-year universities. An end to their relevance in a rapidly evolving world. The crumbling of higher education as we know it. In early August,...

It’s gotten to the point where even the most obviously nonpartisan issues that Americans ought to be able to address cooperatively and rationally have fallen victim to the country’s culture of extreme political polarization. Hostility has grown so intense, especially on the Republican side, that subjects that should be entirely...

Four years ago, I decided I needed to host a pop-up grammar-advice stand. The plan was simple: I’d sit on the streets of New York City and help people with their questions. I ordered a folding table, drew a “Grammar Table” sign and waited for the weather to cool. On...

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) hit a 40-year high in June, with an increase of 9.1% over last year before holding steady in July. According to one analysis, inflation is costing American families about $500 per month in higher prices. Americans are feeling the pain, with a recent Quinnipiac poll...

With the onset of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, e-commerce took on a newly important role in delivering necessary items, and truckers, warehouse workers and distribution-center workers have been recognized as essential. An issue often overlooked, however, is the growing impact of warehousing and distribution centers within the communities in...

The Republicans desperately need a new generation to step up, challenge Donald Trump for the party nomination, and craft a new party agenda. The odds are decent that Republicans will capture the House in November and the Senate remains in play. Even if they prevail, however, they won’t gain veto-proof...

Pennsylvania’s casino industry is a major driver of our statewide economy that benefits every single taxpayer, whether they happen to enjoy gaming or not. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board reports annual gaming revenue exceeded $5 billion for the first time ever in fiscal year 2021-22 (which ended June 30). Perhaps...

You won’t find as many college students heading back to class this fall. That’s because enrollment is down nationwide, and rightfully so. There are 4 million fewer students in college now than there were 10 years ago. It’s certainly easy to blame things like the pandemic and a strong labor...

President Joe Biden is in deep trouble within his own party. A New York Times/Siena College poll in July indicated 61% of Democrats would prefer a different standard-bearer in 2024. Biden’s predicament stems from staffing his administration with progressives who too much prioritize his social agenda and impose policies that...

Today marks 10 years since the last perfect game was pitched in Major League Baseball. A perfect game is when a pitcher allows no runners on base from the opposing team for any reason. Thus with nine innings and three outs per inning, a pitcher would face and retire exactly...

Ten years. An American, a veteran Marine, a man who became a foreign correspondent so that his fellow Americans would know what was happening in Syria, has been missing for 10 years. President Joe Biden knows about Austin Tice. So did President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama. Some of...

Marc Fogel taught high school history for nine years in Moscow, Russia, an experience he found fulfilling. Now, he is a prisoner in the dark, impenetrable side of that Russia, under the iron hand of its absolute authority. All of Russia has lived for centuries in the shadow of that...

After so many years of Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to tie real, growth-producing tax reform to anti-competitive tax tricks, legislative Republicans were able to convince him, at the end of his term, to have a straight-up conversation about making some pro-growth adjustments to our state’s tax code. Thanks to the...

The recent fiasco that was the Pennsylvania Republican primary for U.S. Senate is Exhibit A on why every state needs to make election integrity a priority. It took nearly three weeks to determine the winner of the election. Imagine attending the Super Bowl and having to wait three weeks, or...

I share letter-writer Maria Maliszewski’s concern for Liz Cheney’s future (“Liz Cheney won’t get reelected,” July 30, TribLIVE). Not that I’m her biggest fan; we couldn’t be much farther apart on the political spectrum. And if the people of Wyoming would elect a reasonable replacement, perhaps someone more centrist, I...

I hated college history. The textbooks were mostly about dead white men, Abigail Adams excepted. The lectures were boring. I didn’t see how any of it related to my young life and future plans. Historian David McCullough, who died this week at age 89, helped change my attitude toward history...

How much would you give to save a life? If only we could ask that question three years ago, June 13, 2019 — the day before Stanlee Allyn Holbrook took her own life. She was one of Pittsburgh’s many young and single mothers, all of 26 years old with three...

Part of our role as legislators is to help increase access to opportunities for those we are elected to represent. Act 77 of 2019 did just that. It was a bipartisan bill that expanded access to the ballot by moving the commonwealth on a path toward normalizing no-excuse mail-in voting....

I took a glance at the two sides last week, and it didn’t look pretty. On Wednesday, I attended a township board meeting, where an owner’s right to open a gun shop in our town just west of Philadelphia was challenged. In one corner: an Orthodox Jewish owner, operating a...

White nationalists showed up in the hearings of the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Evidence is mounting that white nationalist groups who want to establish an all-white state played a significant role in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five dead and dozens...

Ayman al-Zawahri, leader of al-Qaida and a plotter of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been killed in a drone strike in the Afghan city of Kabul, according to the U.S. government. Al-Zawahri was the the successor to Osama bin Laden and his death marked “one more measure of closure” to...

The 9.1% increase in U.S. consumer prices in the 12 months ending in June, the highest in four decades, has prompted many sobering headlines. Meanwhile, annual inflation in Germany and the U.K. — countries with comparable economies — ran nearly as high: 7.5% and 8.2%, respectively, for the 12 months...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan Aug. 2 — a highly controversial trip that has been strongly opposed by China. Such is the sensitivity over the island’s status that even before Pelosi’s plane touched down in the capital of Taipei, mere reports of the proposed trip prompted a warning...

The current U.S. labor shortage has affected nearly every industry, from education to health services and child care, leaving many organizations at a loss for how to attract, hire and retain new employees. This year, there are 5.5 million more job openings available than there are candidates to fill those...